Dr. Martin Reick
Associate Professor
Tel: +91 476 2896318/28 Ext: 3109
Email: martin@amritapuri.amrita.edu
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Research Interests: Impairment of wound healing is one of the most serious secondary complications of diabetes and poor control of serum glucose levels because it can result in sepsis amputation. Several of the processes contributing to normal wound healing are impaired in diabetics. The impaired processes include cell migration and division, angiogenesis and inflammation. Recently the function of the bHLH-PAS transcription factor HIF (consisting of HIF-1alpha and HIF-1beta/ARNT) has been shown to be impaired under hyperglycemic conditions. Inhibition of HIF activation under hyperglycemic is possibly a major cause of impaired wound healing because it controls the expression genes, such as vegf and epo, that are essential regulators of angiogenesis and wound healing. HIF is also known to regulate the expression of other genes such as bFGF and some of the nitric oxide synthase isozymes which have also been implicated in wound healing. Hence we are interested in identifying the molecular mechanisms that inhibit hypoxic activation of HIF under hyperglycemic conditions. Both insulin and hypoxia induced signaling pathways are affected by hyperglycemic conditions and both pathways control the transcription of an overlapping set of target genes. This has sparked our interest in possible crosstalk between hypoxia induced and insulin induced signaling pathways. Finally we hope to develop and set up high throughput in vitro and cell based assays of HIF activity as a means to screen natural compounds for their ability to restore hypoxia induced activation of HIF under hyperglycemic conditions.
Publications:
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