Ila Mishra, Ph.D., assistant professor in the division of endocrinology, diabetes and metabolism, has recently been awarded an R01 grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for her project The Role of Asprosin-Ptprd Signaling in the Neural Control of Blood Pressure. The grant totals to over 3.35 million dollars across a five-year span.
Asprosin is a hormone that is produced primarily by the white adipose tissue. In previous research, Mishra and her team have learned that asprosin crosses the blood brain barrier and elicits its neural effects by binding to a receptor called Protein Tyrosine Phosphatase Receptor Type D (PTPRD). So far, two neural functions of PTPRD have been well characterized:
- It activates hunger-regulating neurons in the hypothalamus called AgRP neurons to increase appetite.
- It activates a different set of neurons in the cerebellum called Purkinje neurons, leading to an increase in water intake.
Because PTPRD was identified as the brain receptor for asprosin only a few years ago, Mishra’s team believes this signaling pathway has many additional functions that have yet to be discovered.
“Understanding these functions is a major focus of my lab,” Mishra said. “This project investigates whether asprosin-PTPRD signaling also helps in the neural regulation of blood pressure. By uncovering how this pathway influences blood pressure, we hope to determine whether it can be potentially targeted for hypertension treatment.”
As part of this R01 funding, Mishra’s lab will train a postdoctoral scientist and a graduate student to study neurogenic hypertension.
“One of the major goals of my lab is to train the next generation of scientists in the field of asprosin biology. We want to technically and intellectually develop them towards an independent academic career.”
The grant will also allow the team to equip their lab with the telemetric setup needed for thorough investigation on the blood pressure in mice.
By the end of this grant, Mishra and her team hope to determine whether a newly discovered brain signaling pathway can be harnessed to lower blood pressure. If successful, this work could lay the foundation for an entirely new class of treatments for hypertension, a condition that affects nearly half of all adults.
“Receiving this grant is incredibly meaningful in the present times. In today's highly competitive NIH funding environment, it provides the resources and stability needed to pursue ambitious, high-risk questions that could lead to new ways of treating hypertension. It is also encouraging to know that reviewers recognized the potential impact of this research, motivating us to push the work forward,” Mishra said.
Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number 1R01HL185125-01. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.