Jepps Group - Vascular Biology

The overarching theme of the group's research is to reveal and investigate new mechanisms that regulate arterial tone in order to improve our understanding of how vascular diseases develop, such as hypertension and atherosclerosis, and identify novel therapeutic targets.

 

 

 

Over one billion people worldwide are affected by high blood pressure (hypertension). Hypertension is a major risk factor in many diseases including heart failure, stroke, chronic kidney disease, erectile dysfunction and Alzheimer's disease. Importantly, 90% of the people with hypertension are genetically prone to developing high blood pressure, but relatively little is known about the mechanisms that underlie this susceptibility.

In the Vascular Biology Group, we investigate blood vessels. We are interested in the cells that control the diameter of arteries, namely smooth muscle cells, which can contract and relax. In hypertension and atherosclerosis, hyper-contractility and restructuring of arterial smooth muscle cells leads to increased arterial tone and/or reduced blood flow. In the smooth muscle cells, several membrane proteins display altered function and expression, but without an understanding of how their membrane expression is controlled, development of new therapeutics to treat hypertension remains a distant dream. The group's research will continue to investigate trafficking mechanisms of specific membrane proteins, such as ion channels and receptors, that are dysregulated in vascular disease.

 

 

 

In the Vascular Biology Group, we investigate blood vessels. We are interested in the cells that control the diameter of arteries, namely smooth muscle cells, which can contract and relax. In hypertension and atherosclerosis, hyper-contractility and restructuring of arterial smooth muscle cells leads to increased arterial tone and/or reduced blood flow. In the smooth muscle cells, several membrane proteins display altered function and expression, but without an understanding of how their membrane expression is controlled, development of new therapeutics to treat hypertension remains a distant dream. The group's research will continue to investigate trafficking mechanisms of specific membrane proteins, such as ion channels and receptors, that are dysregulated in vascular disease.

The overarching theme of the group's research is to reveal and investigate new mechanisms that regulate arterial tone in order to improve our understanding of how vascular diseases develop, such as hypertension and atherosclerosis, and identify novel therapeutic targets. We have multiple ongoing research projects, but below are the two major research areas on which the group are focused currently.

Microtubules and Hypertension

This project investigates microtubule regulation of arterial tone and determines whether targeting microtubules can help treat hypertension. The group made the seminal finding that microtubules can regulate arterial tone (Lindman et al., 2018; Hypertension). These findings revealed an entirely new pathway for regulating vascular smooth muscle and suggest the microtubule network is extremely important for dictating ion channels and receptors that control arterial tone.

The laboratory has multiple ongoing projects to investigate the precise mechanisms underlying microtubule-regulation of specific ion channels and receptors that are important for controlling vascular tone.

Functional Sympatholysis

During exercise, arteries surrounding the exercising skeletal muscle are able to dilate even though sympathetic activation and intravascular norepinephrine is increased, which would normally cause a vasoconstriction. This vasodilatation is crucial to match the enhanced metabolic demand of active skeletal muscle. The mechanisms responsible for this important physiological phenomenon - termed functional sympatholysis - remain a mystery 90 years after it was first described. In vascular diseases such as hypertension and atherosclerosis, functional sympatholysis is impaired, which is a major contributor to the inadequate supply of blood flow to muscle thereby reducing one’s ability to exercise. Determining the underlying mechanisms of functional sympatholysis would resolve a 90 year challenge in cardiovascular physiology, potentially allowing for novel therapeutic targets to improve functional capacity and thereby quality of life in populations suffering from inadequate blood flow supply to skeletal muscle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Group leader

Group Leader

Thomas Qvistgaard Jepps
Associate Professor

Phone +45 3533 0972
tjepps@sund.ku.dk 

Group members

Name Title Phone E-mail
Anthony Michael Mozzicato PhD Fellow   E-mail
Jennifer van der Horst Postdoc   E-mail
Joakim Armstrong Bastrup Postdoc   E-mail
Johs Dannesboe Research Assistant +4535324764 E-mail
Salomé Rognant Research Assistant +4535337890 E-mail
Samuel Neil Baldwin Postdoc +4535325459 E-mail
Thomas Andrew Qvistgaard Jepps Associate Professor +4535330972 E-mail