Area of research
Pulmonary and Respiratory Medicine · Neurology
Research interest
Research topics from publications: Disrupted interaction between CFTR and AF-6/afadin aggravates malignant phenotypes of colon cancer; Defective CFTR- β-catenin interaction promotes NF-κB nuclear translocation and intestinal inflammation in cystic fibrosis; Defective CFTR leads to aberrant β-catenin activation and kidney fibrosis. Representative work: // Kaisheng Liu 1, * , Xiaohu Zhang 1, 3, * , Jie Ting Zhang 1 , Lai Ling Tsang 1 , Xiaohua Jiang 1, 2 , Hsiao Chang Chan 1, 2, 3 1 Epithelial Cell Biology Research Center, Key Laboratory for Regenerative Medicine of the Ministry of Education of China, School of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, PR China 2 School of Biomedical Sciences Core Laboratory, Shenzhen Research Institute, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, PR China 3 Sichuan University-The Chinese University of Hong Kong Joint Laboratory for Reproductive Medicine, West China Second University Hospital, Chengdu, PR China * These authors contributed equally to thi channel, is widely expressed at the apical membrane of epithelial cells in a wide variety of tissues. Of note, despite the abundant expression of CFTR in mammalian kidney, the role of CFTR in kidney disease development is unclear. Here, we report that CFTR expression is downregulated in the UUO (unilateral ureteral obstruction)-induced kidney fibrosis mouse model and human fibrotic kidneys. Dysfunction or downregulation of CFTR in renal epithelial cells leads to alteration of genes involved in Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition (EMT) and kidney fibrosis. In addition, dysregulation of CFTR activates canonical Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathways, whereas the β-catenin inhibitor reverses the effect