Description

Dr. Renjing Liu, Ph.D., leader of the Vascular Epigenetic Lab at the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute in Australia, will present her work entitled: Tet2 restoration alleviates medial aortic calcification. Please note this webinar will begin at 4 pm Eastern.

Abstract:  In this seminar, I will share my lab’s recent work on a new epigenetic regulator of vascular calcification, a pathology that underlies nearly all forms of cardiovascular diseases. Using a combination of molecular, histological, and biomechanical analyses in cell cultures, transgenic mice, and human organ cultures, we demonstrate that loss of the DNA demethylase, TET2, accelerates VSMC osteogenic differentiation and exacerbates medial aortic calcification. We also identified a unique TREM2hi macrophage subpopulation localized to calcified aortic regions, which is non-inflammatory, providing new insight into the paradox of a pro-inflammatory environment lacking pro-inflammatory cells in calcified areas. Finally, our data demonstrate that pharmacological activation of TET2 activity can reduce vascular calcification and restores aortic integrity in vivo. These findings suggest that targeting TET2 offers a promising therapeutic strategy to mitigate vascular calcification.