IL-17 signaling in airway smooth muscle cells

在过去的十年中，对细胞因子如何影响细胞功能的研究彻底改变了我们对免疫系统的看法。特别是，一种名为白细胞介素-17的新细胞因子已经定义了免疫机制如何运作的新范式。然而，这种细胞因子如何影响我们身体的其他细胞，特别是结构细胞，如气道内的平滑肌，目前还不完全清楚。在这个研究项目中，我们建议扩展我们对细胞因子IL-17如何影响气道平滑肌细胞的基因表达以及介导基因表达的信号因子的了解。我们相信这些研究将使我们扩大对IL-17介导的平滑肌功能的细胞和分子机制的认识，解释其作为细胞功能的关键介质的作用，并有助于理解免疫介质在人类生物学中的作用。

During the last decade, study of how cytokines affect cellular function has revolutionized our thinking of the immune system. In particular, a new cytokine called interleukin-17 has defined a new paradigm on how immunological mechanisms operate. However, it is not fully understood how this cytokine affects other cells of our body, in particular structural cells such as smooth muscle within the airways. In this research program, we propose to extend our knowledge of how this cytokine, IL-17, affects gene expression in airway smooth muscle cells and what are the signaling factors that mediates gene expression. We believe that these studies will allow us to expand our knowledge of the cellular and molecular mechanism involved in IL-17 mediated smooth muscle function, explain its role as a key mediator of cellular function and help understand the role of immune mediators on human biology.