Calzada, María José

Hypoxia is a well-studied process and a paradigm of responses with different consequences on health and illness. In our group we are interested in studying the biological and molecular processes involved in pulmonary pathologies such as pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and asthma, in which hypoxia plays an important role. We are interested in the translational aspect to respond to relevant clinical questions in these pathologies. The TSP-1 protein is elevated in the lung of patients with PAH as well as COPD. Our studies have shown the importance of TSP-1 in an organ so exposed to changes and environmental aggressions as the lung, identifying the mechanism by which this protein is induced in hypoxia and some of the multiple mechanisms through which TSP-1 promotes PAH.

Although to date the involvement of TSP-1 in COPD has not been demonstrated, it is likely that high levels of TSP-1 would produce an enrichment in the active forms of TGF-β in the lung, which would stimulate the remodeling of the respiratory tract and pulmonary parenchyma and contribute to the pathogenesis of COPD. However, there is still a clear lack of detailed molecular and cellular studies to unravel the potential of TSP-1 as a prognostic marker or therapeutic target in COPD. Among our interests, we emphasize studying the involvement of TSP-1 in vascular remodeling at both the artery and bronchial tree levels, and the hemodynamic and histological aspects of remodeling and endothelial function, as well as ex vivo vascular electrophysiology in animal models for these pathologies.