PROJECT SUMMARY

UPDATE: Jen graduated early in 2008 and will be heading back to med. school @ UCLA to finish up the other docter-related portion of her Md/PhD. Booooh! We'll still see her around, though...I'm sure she won't be able to stay away.

Dendritic cells are potent mediators of the immune response, and can be activated by a variety of signals, primarily exogenous pathogen components. Once activated, dendritic cells alter their cell surface phenotype and acquire functionality to present antigen and prime extensive T cell immune responses. As dendritic cells play a significant role in initiating immune response, understanding mechanisms regulating dendritic cell function is important to understand immune regulation as a whole, and can have significant clinical implications in immunotherapy and dendritic-cell based vaccines.

Galectin-1 is a member of the highly conserved b-galactoside-binding lectin family which binds galactoside residues on cell-surface glycoconjugates. Galectin-1, present at sites of inflammation, is known to play a role in immune regulation via action on multiple immune cells including T cells and B cells. This project is focused on understading the role galectin-1 plays in regulation dendritic cell activation and function.

We have shown using immunological techniques that galectin-1 matures dendritic cells to become phenotypically and functionally active, suggesting that gal-1 may be an important component in initiating the immune response. To understand the role this endogenous lectin might play in the overall function of dendritic cells, we used microarray analysis to compare gene expression in dendritic cells activated with galectin-1 to those activated with exogenous pathogen components. While galectin-1 modulates the same DC maturation genes as other stimuli, galectin-1 also uniquely upregulated a significant subset of genes related to other functional gene ontologies. One functional group regulated by galectin-1 is cell migration, and we are currently investigating the role of galectin-1 in dendritic cell migration to and from inflammatory sites. We will continue to focus on the mechanism of galectin-1-induced maturation and migration, as well as probe the utility of this knowledge in designed more effetive dendritic cell vaccines.

If interested, please take a look at my most recent publication on this work:

Fulcher JA, Hashimi ST, Levroney EL, Pang M, Gurney KB, Baum LG, Lee B. Galectin-1-Matured Human Monocyte-Derived Dendritic Cells Have Enhanced Migration through Extracellular Matrix. J Immunol. 2006 Jul 1;177(1):216-26.