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Research Bench Lab
Yi-Guang Chen, PhD

Yi-Guang Chen, PhD

Professor, Pediatrics (Endocrinology) and Microbiology & Immunology

Locations

  • Pediatrics (Endocrinology)
    TBRC C2520

Contact Information

General Interests

Immunogenetics of Type 1 Diabetes

Education

PhD, Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of Rochester, 2002
BS, National Taiwan University, Taiwan, 1993

Research Interests

Type 1 diabetes (T1D) results from T cell mediated destruction of insulin producing pancreatic β-cells.  Although T1D is most frequently diagnosed in children and young adults, it is a life-long disease requiring daily injections or infusions of exogenous insulin to maintain glucose homeostasis. Furthermore, many T1D patients develop diabetic complications later in life significantly threatening the quality of their lives.  Unfortunately, the incidence of T1D has been increasing worldwide in the past decades. Studies conducted in both rodent models and humans indicate that genetic susceptibility significantly contributes to T1D development.  Human genome wide association studies (GWAS) have identified more than 50 loci significantly linked to T1D. However, our knowledge of the underlying genes within the mapped GWAS regions and their pathogenic roles in T1D is incomplete. The focus of our research program is to further understand the genetic basis of T1D with the following three main goals. (1) To identify T1D susceptibility genes and mechanistically study their disease modulating functions, (2) To evaluate the potential of pharmaceutical targeting of T1D susceptibility genes and the pathways in which they are involved for disease prevention and reversal, and (3) To determine if T1D susceptibility genes also modulate the responses to clinically relevant therapeutic agents. The NOD mouse represents one of the best rodent models for T1D research.  NOD mice develop spontaneous T1D with characteristics similar to the human disease. Our current effort is to genetically modify genes within the human T1D susceptibility loci identified by GWAS in NOD mice and functionally evaluate their roles in diabetes development. These genetically modified NOD mice also allow us to study how T1D susceptibility genes contribute to diabetes development at both the molecular and cellular levels.

chen_figure1

Figure 1. Islet infiltration of leukocytes that destroy pancreatic β-cells in NOD mice. (A) A healthy islet without leukocyte infiltration. (B-D) Islets with various levels of leukocyte infiltration (insulitis).

Publications

  • (Srivastava N, Hu H, Peterson OJ, Vomund AN, Stremska M, Zaman M, Giri S, Li T, Lichti CF, Zakharov PN, Zhang B, Abumrad NA, Chen YG, Ravichandran KS, Unanue ER, Wan X.) Immunity. 2024 Jul 09;57(7):1629-1647.e8 PMID: 38754432 PMCID: PMC11236520 SCOPUS ID: 2-s2.0-85194456425 05/17/2024

  • (Debreceni IL, Barr JY, Upton EM, Chen YG, Lieberman SM.) Clin Immunol. 2024 Jul;264:110260 PMID: 38788885 PMCID: PMC11203157 SCOPUS ID: 2-s2.0-85193848203 05/25/2024

  • (Pant T, Lin CW, Bedrat A, Jia S, Roethle MF, Truchan NA, Ciecko AE, Chen YG, Hessner MJ.) Sci Adv. 2024 May 17;10(20):eadn2136 PMID: 38758799 PMCID: PMC11100571 SCOPUS ID: 2-s2.0-85193631768 05/17/2024

  • (Alvarez-Argote S, Paddock SJ, Flinn MA, Moreno CW, Knas MC, Almeida VA, Buday SL, Bakhshian Nik A, Patterson M, Chen YG, Lin CW, O'Meara CC.) JCI Insight. 2024 Jan 23;9(2) PMID: 38051583 PMCID: PMC10906228 SCOPUS ID: 2-s2.0-85183312687 12/06/2023

  • (Ye C, Clements SA, Gu W, Geurts AM, Mathews CE, Serreze DV, Chen YG, Driver JP.) Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2023 Dec 05;120(49):e2312039120 PMID: 38015847 PMCID: PMC10710095 SCOPUS ID: 2-s2.0-85178500431 11/28/2023

  • (Thirawatananond P, Brown ME, Sachs LK, Arnoletti JM, Yeh WI, Posgai AL, Shapiro MR, Chen YG, Brusko TM.) Diabetes. 2023 Nov 01;72(11):1629-1640 PMID: 37625150 PMCID: PMC10588280 SCOPUS ID: 2-s2.0-85175068629 08/25/2023

  • (Khatun A, Wu X, Qi F, Gai K, Kharel A, Kudek MR, Fraser L, Ceicko A, Kasmani MY, Majnik A, Burns R, Chen YG, Salzman N, Taparowsky EJ, Fang D, Williams CB, Cui W.) Adv Sci (Weinh). 2023 Oct;10(28):e2206692 PMID: 37587835 PMCID: PMC10558681 SCOPUS ID: 2-s2.0-85168114370 08/17/2023

  • (Ciecko AE, Wang Y, Harleston S, Drewek A, Serreze DV, Geurts AM, Lin CW, Chen YG.) J Immunol. 2023 Apr 01;210(7):935-946 PMID: 36762954 PMCID: PMC10483376 SCOPUS ID: 2-s2.0-85151043870 02/11/2023

  • (Blum SI, Taylor JP, Barra JM, Burg AR, Shang Q, Qiu S, Shechter O, Hayes AR, Green TJ, Geurts AM, Chen YG, Tse HM.) JCI Insight. 2023 Jan 24;8(2) PMID: 36512407 PMCID: PMC9977297 SCOPUS ID: 2-s2.0-85147047458 12/14/2022

  • (Racine JJ, Morel L, Chen YG, Serreze DV.) Front Immunol. 2022;13:1069232 PMID: 36389740 PMCID: PMC9644883 SCOPUS ID: 2-s2.0-85141691679 11/18/2022

  • (Sargin P, Roethle MF, Jia S, Pant T, Ciecko AE, Atkinson SN, Salzman NH, Teng RJ, Chen YG, Cabrera SM, Hessner MJ.) Gut Microbes. 2022;14(1):2136467 PMID: 36261888 PMCID: PMC9586621 SCOPUS ID: 2-s2.0-85140364986 10/21/2022

  • (Rojas M, Heuer LS, Zhang W, Chen YG, Ridgway WM.) Front Immunol. 2022;13:918837 PMID: 35935980 PMCID: PMC9353112 SCOPUS ID: 2-s2.0-85135448167 08/09/2022