Le Cras Lab

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Le Cras Lab

Current Projects & Grants

Asthma
Impact of Early Life Diesel Exposure on Immune Patterning and Lung Structure / Function
Co-PIs: Drs Hershey & Le Cras
The goals of this project are to determine whether diesel exhaust particle exposure during early life alters lung morphogenesis and immune patterning and predisposes for increased risk for asthma later in life.

Pulmonary Hypertension
Genetic Analysis of Murine Chronic-Hypoxia-Induced Pulmonary Hypertension
PI: Dr Nichols, Genetics Division; Co-I: Le Cras
The goals of this project are to identify specific regions of the mouse genome containing genes contributing to increased susceptibility to chronic hypoxia-induced right ventricular hypertrophy and right ventricular systolic pressure.

Pathogenesis of Neonatal Lung Disease
Also known as bronchopulmonary dysplasia; BPD
PI: Le Cras
The goals of this project are to determine the role of anti-angiogenic factors in pulmonary vascular development and disease, including vascular remodeling and right ventricular hypertrophy (failure) in the newborn.

Click for larger image.

Picture shows diesel exhaust particles (DEP) in a lung macrophages from a DEP exposed mouse.
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Picture shows diesel exhaust particles (DEP) in macrophages of an exposed mouse and CLCA3 positive mucus-producing goblet cells in the airways of the lungs.
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Picture shows arterial remodeling in transgenic mouse model which develops severe pulmonary hypertension.
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Picture shows arteriograms of the lungs from a normal wild type mouse (left) and a transgenic mouse (right) which overexpresses transforming growth factor-alpha (TGF-α) in its airway epithelial cells. The arteriograms show extensive arterial branching in the lungs of the wild type mouse, but very reduced arterial structure in the transgenic mouse. See publications by Le Cras lab (4, 5) for more information. High TGF-α levels have been reported in a number of chronic lung diseases, including in tissue from human infants who have died from BPD.

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