Tarrant Lab
Director: Terresa Tarrant, MD
The all-encompassing interest of this laboratory is studying the underlying mechanisms of leukocyte trafficking and detecting their migratory patterns in vivo in inflammatory arthritis models of rheumatoid arthritis (RA).
Manipulating leukocyte trafficking is a promising therapeutic target for patients with RA . Chemokines and their receptors are critical to this process. Chemokine receptors are G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs). We study G-protein receptor kinases (GRKs), which phosphorylate the GPCR in an agonist-dependent fashion. We hypothesize that GRKs are important regulators of leukocyte migration and that this is dependent on the GRKs subtype expressed within different leukocyte subpopulations. Consequently, we hypothesize that targeting individual GRKs molecules will affect inflammatory arthritis disease expression differentially, and we are exploring these mechanisms in vitroand in in vivomodels of acute and chronic inflammatory arthritis.
Another challenge for research and treatment of RA is the inability to specifically, but noninvasively, characterize inflammatory events within the joint. Because cellular and molecular events long precede anatomic abnormalities, detection beyond the scope of conventional imaging is required to recognize disease earlier and design more targeted biologic therapies. Using a multidisciplinary team approach with Dr. Wenbin Lin in the Department of Chemistry and Drs. Hongyu An and Weili Lin in the Department of Radiology, we are exploring the use of novel nanomaterial-based MR contrast agents aimed at cellular and molecular pathways in order to develop safe, effective imaging strategies for patients with RA .