Ling Yang, Ph.D.
Introduction
Organisms have developed a wide range of sophisticated stress response mechanisms, which act at the cellular or organelle-specific level to restore homeostasis when they experience noxious stimuli. Compromised stress responses contribute to the onset of many human diseases including obesity. Our research aims to identify the molecular components of integration between organelle stress responses that are in play in obesity and diabetes at the cellular and organismic levels. Autophagy is a ubiquitous process in eukaryotic cells that results in the breakdown of damaged or superfluous proteins and organelles within the lysosome to allow cells to adapt to environmental stress. We recently identified that autophagy is an important regulator of hepatic glucose metabolism and insulin signaling, and that loss of autophagy is a critical contributor to the defective ER function characteristic of obesity. We are specifically interested in identifying the physiological causes of defective hepatic autophagy in obesity, and defining the molecular mechanisms underlying how autophagy, as a catabolic pathway, controls energy homeostasis in obesity-associated metabolic disorders.
Current Positions
- Associate Professor of Anatomy and Cell Biology
- Associate Professor of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics
- Stead Family Scholar
Education
- BS in Biology, Northwest Normal University, Department of Biology, Lanzhou, China
- MS in Cellular Biology, School of Life Science, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China
- PhD in Cellular and Molecular Biology, School of Biomedical Sciences, Kent State University, Kent, Ohio, United States
- Postdoc training in the laboratory of Gokhan S. Hotamisligil, M.D., Ph.D in (Department of) Genetics and Complex Diseases, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
- Laboratory of Gokhan S. Hotamisligil, M.D., Ph.D in (Department of) Genetics and Complex Diseases, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
Graduate Program Affiliations
Center, Program and Institute Affiliations
Research Interests
- Organelle stress response in obesity and diabetes
Selected Publications
- Qian H, Chao X, Williams J, Fulte S, Li T, Yang L, Ding WX. Autophagy in liver diseases: A review. Mol Aspects Med. 2021 Jun 10;:100973. doi: 10.1016/j.mam.2021.100973. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 34120768.
- Krongbaramee T, Zhu M, Qian Q, Zhang Z, Eliason S, Shu Y, Qian F, Akkouch A, Su D, Amendt BA, Yang L, Hong L. Plasmid encoding microRNA-200c ameliorates periodontitis and systemic inflammation in obese mice. Mol Ther Nucleic Acids. 2021 Mar 5;23:1204-1216. doi: 10.1016/j.omtn.2021.01.030. eCollection 2021 Mar 5. PubMed PMID: 33664998; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC7899952.
- Sebag SC, Zhang Z, Qian Q, Li M, Harata M, Li W, Zhu Z, Zingman L, Liu L, Lira VA, Potthoff MJ, Bartelt A, Yang L. ADH5 Maintains Metabolic Homeostasis in Brown Adipose Tissue. Cell Reports, 2021, Accepted.
- Zhang Z#, Qian Q#, Li M, Shao F, Ding WX, Lira V, Chen SX, Sebag SC, Hotamisligil GS, Cao HJ, Ling Yang*. The Unfolded Protein Response Regulates Hepatic Autophagy by sXBP1-mediated Activation of TFEB. Autophagy, 2020 Jul 15;:1-15. doi: 10.1080/15548627.2020.1788889.
- Mark Li#, Fan Shao#, Qingwen Qian, Wenjie Yu, Zeyuan Zhang, Biyi Chen, Dan Su, Yuwei Guo, An-vi Phan, Long-sheng Song, Samuel B. Stevens, Julien Sebag, Yumi Imai, Ling Yang*, Houjun Cao*. A putative long nonencoding RNA-encoded micropeptide maintains cellular homeostasis in pancreatic β-cells. Mol Ther Nucleic Acids, 2021 Jul 16; 26:307-320. *Corresponding author.
- Qian, Q., Zhang, Z., Li, M., Savage, K. A., Cheng, D., Rauckhorst, A. J., Ankrum, J. A., Taylor, E. B., Ding, W. X., Xiao, Y., Cao, H. J. & Yang, L. (2019). Hepatic Lysosomal iNOS Activity Impairs Autophagy in Obesity. Cell Mol Gastroenterol Hepatol 8 (1) 95-110 ; [Epub ahead of print]. DOI: 10.1016/j.jcmgh.2019.03.005. PMID: 30926581.
- Wang, J., Qui, Y., Yang, Z., Kim, H., Qian, Q., Sun, Q., Zhang, C., Yin, L., Fang, D., Back, S. H., Kaufman, R. J., Yang, L. & Zhang, K. (2018). IRE1α prevents hepatic steatosis by processing and promoting the degradation of select microRNAs. Science Signaling 11 (530) eaao4617. DOI: 10.1126/scisignal.aao4617. PMID: 29764990. PMCID: PMC6075656.
- Nicholas R.L. Lind, Qingwen Qian, Ling Yang. ER stress and autophagy in obesity and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. Current Pathology Reports, 2017, 5:289-299.
- Ling Yang, Licastro D, Cava E, Veronese N, Spelta F, Rizza W, Bertozzi B, Villareal DT, Hotamisligil GS, Holloszy JO, Fontana L. Long-Term calorie restriction enhances cellular quality-control processes in human skeletal muscle. Cell Rep., 2016 26;14(3):422-8. PMID: 26774472
- Ling Yang, Ediz S. Calay, Jason Fan, Alessandro Arduini, Ryan C. Kunz, Steven P. Gygi, Abdullah Yalcin, Suneng Fu, Gökhan S. Hotamisligil. S-Nitrosylation links obesity-associated inflammation to endoplasmic reticulum dysfunction. Science, 2015, 349:500-506. PMID: 26228140