Bo Liu, Ph.D.

Department of Surgery
School of Medicine and Public Health
University of Wisconsin, Madison

Primary Research:

Dr. Liu's lab focuses on investigation of cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying restenosis and abdominal aortic aneurysm. Abnormal behavior of vascular smooth muscle cells is implicated in both disease processes, albeit through different phenotypic presentations. Dr. Liu's laboratory combines in vitro studies with transgenic, gene knockout and adenoviral technologies in rats and mice to unravel the molecular pathways that control cell death as well as cell death responses in injured arteries. Recent work in the Liu lab has shown that inhibition of apoptosis or programmed necrosis blocks formation and progression of abdominal aortic aneurysm. They are identifying new players in the signaling networks that balance cell survival, apoptosis and necroptosis, and learning new functions of known death regulators in cell death-independent inflammatory responses. These mechanisms provide insights on how cell death actively contributes to vascular inflammation through interactions with innate immune system. The work is accelerating the development of therapeutics.

Find more information on the web: http://www.surgery.wisc.edu/research/researchers-labs/liu/

Members of the laboratory:

Bo Liu- Principal Investigator
Stephanie Morgan- Postdoctoral fellow
Jun Ren- Graduate Student
Qiwei Wang- Graduate Student
Jasmine Giles- Research Specialist
Carmel Assa- Undergraduate Student
Jason Greenberg- Undergraduate Student

Recent Publications:

1. Wang Q, Liu Z, Ren J, Assa C, Morgan S, and Liu B. Receptor-interacting protein kinase-c contributes to abdominal aortic aneurysm via smooth muscle cell necrosis and inflammation. Circ Res 2015 116:600-11 (PMC4329096)
2. Wang Q, Ren J, Morgan S, Liu Z, Dou C, and Liu B. Monocyte Chemoattractant Protein-1 (MCP-1) regulates macrophage cytotoxicity in abdominal aortic aneurysm. PloS One 2014 9:e92053 (PMC3954911)
3. Ren J, Wang Q, Morgan S, Si Y, Ravichander A, Dou C, Kent KC, and Liu B Protein Kinase C-delta regulates pro-inflammatory chemokine expression through cytosolic interaction with the NFκB subunit p65 in vascular smooth muscle cells. J Biol Chem 2014 289:9013 (PMC3979373)
4. Liu Z, Wang Q, Ren J, Assa CR, Morgan S, Giles J, Han Q, and Liu B A murine abdominal aortic aneurysm model by orthotopic allograft transplantation of elastase-treated abdominal aorta. J Vas Surg 2014 S0741-5214(14)01000-3 (PMC24974783)
5. Bechler S, Si Y, Yu Y, Ren J, Liu B, and Lynn DM. Reduction of intimal hyperplasia in injured rat arteries promoted by catheter balloons coated with polyelectrolyte multilayers that contain plasmid DNA encoding PKCdelta. Biomaterials 2013 34:226 (PMC3483441)
6. Morgan S, Yamanouchi D, Harberg C, Wang Q, Keller, M, Burlingham W, Seedial S, Lengfeld J, and Liu B. Protein Kinase C-delta regulates inflammation in mouse abdominal aortic an eurysm through monocyte chemoattractant Protein-1. Arterioscler Thromb Vasc Biol. 2012 32:2493 (PMC3442600)