Genetic approaches to understand how imbalanced cytokine signalling drives the pathogenesis of emphysema

肺气肿是慢性阻塞性肺疾病（COPD）的主要组成部分，是澳大利亚第五大死亡原因，目前尚无有效治疗方法。我们发现了一种名为gp130的基因的特殊突变，这种突变会导致小鼠肺气肿的形成。这一发现使我们能够了解这种突变导致肺气肿的确切机制，因此有可能发现新的策略来设计针对人类肺气肿的新疗法。

Emphysema is a major component of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), the fifth leading cause of death in Australia for which there is no effective treatment. We have discovered a specific mutation in a gene called gp130 that results in the formation of emphysema in mice. This finding allows us to understand the exact mechanisms by which this mutation causes emphysema, and therefore has the potential to uncover new strategies to design novel therapies against emphysema in humans.