Feng Qian
University of Maryland, Baltimore, MD·Biochemistry
Polycystic kidney disease (PKD) is an inherited disorder in which fluid-filled cysts gradually replace working kidney tissue. It is caused by faults in a few large proteins, chiefly Polycystin-1 (PC1), Polycystin-2 (PC2) and Fibrocystin.
- Fields
Biochemistry
Medicine & Clinical Research
Biology
- Topics
polycystic kidney disease
Polycystin-1
Polycystin-2
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Aug 2030
What they work on
- Develop rabbit monoclonal antibodies against the human Polycystin-1 C-terminal fragment, the 11-transmembrane piece produced by cleavage at the GPS site, using RNA immunization.
- Develop rabbit monoclonal antibodies against the mouse Polycystin-1 N-terminal fragment, using immunogen expressed in mammalian cells so it carries native modifications.
- Develop rabbit monoclonal antibodies against human Polycystin-2, the channel partner of Polycystin-1, from mammalian-cell-produced immunogen, and test whether they can modulate PC2 and PC1/PC2 channel function.
- Maintain and distribute existing polycystin and fibrocystin antibodies and expression vectors, and provide experimental design, troubleshooting and data-interpretation support to PKD laboratories.
- Validate the new reagents for demanding applications such as super-resolution microscopy of polycystin location and the spatial relationship between PC1 fragments and between PC1 and PC2.
More about the research
Studying these proteins is unusually hard: PC1 is present in very small amounts, is physically huge, threads through the membrane many times, and is cut into two pieces, an N-terminal fragment and an 11-transmembrane C-terminal fragment, at a site called the GPS. Their large size also makes the DNA constructs used to express them awkward to handle. As a result the field lacks reliable antibodies, especially ones that work in living tissue, which slows everyone's experiments.
Why it matters
Researchers working on polycystic kidney disease, a common inherited cause of kidney failure, are held back by the shortage of antibodies good enough for experiments in intact tissue. By producing and distributing validated rabbit monoclonal antibodies against Polycystin-1 and Polycystin-2, plus vectors and expert guidance, this Core could remove a practical bottleneck for many labs and speed work toward understanding and eventually treating cyst formation.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Philipp Schmidpeter
University of Texas at San Antonio, TX·Biophysics
Identify membrane lipids that modulate TRP ion channel activity, using cell-based experiments designed for the membrane environment.
Kurt Zimmerman
University of Oklahoma-Health Sciences Center, OK·Microbiology & Immunology
Generate single-cell RNA sequencing data from the inducible Pax8 rtTA tetocre Pkd1f/f mouse model and merge it with the lab's existing mouse polycystic kidney disease atlas, analyzing it with the team's deep learning model.
Jason Mills
Baylor College of Medicine, TX·Medicine & Clinical Research
Provide reliable tissue processing and histopathology services, including embedding, microtomy, staining and histochemistry, to characterize disease features in human and animal gastrointestinal tissues.
The school
University of Maryland, Baltimore: 23 labs on PI Pages, $1.5B a year on research, 79 research doctorates a year.
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