Project Leader: Lauren Donoghue

In individuals with asthma, changes to the airway epithelium and underlying tissue can alter airway function. This phenomenon is referred to as “airway remodeling”. Features of airway remodeling include (but are not limited to) goblet cell metaplasia/mucus hypersecretion, subepithelial fibrosis, and smooth muscle hyperplasia. Understanding how airway remodeling is regulated at the molecular and transcriptional levels is a critical step in identifying effective options to treat or prevent reduced airway function in asthmatics. Given the challenges of studying airway remodeling in the human populations and taking repeated measurements over time, we quantitatively phenotype allergen-induced airway remodeling in genetically diverse mouse strains. Using these data, we aim to identify gene networks and transcriptional regulators driving airway remodeling phenotypes by analyzing how genome-wide airway transcription varies by strain and during remodeling development.