Abstract

Our organs are interconnected: they communicate to coordinate their functions. These interorgan communication networks allow our bodies to maintain a steady state, or homeostasis. This is significant as the development of many disorders, including obesity and diabetes, and their complications result from faulty communication between organs. As a result, diseases need to be studied in the context of the entire body. Significant contributors to these networks are secreted proteins, which are produced by one organ and then traffic through the blood to another organ. However, their identification has previously been challenging. Our lab developed methods to study these interorgan communication networks in steady state, how these networks are altered in metabolic disease, and how the altered networks contribute to disease development. We will use our newly established proteomics and genetics platforms to identify the interorgan communication proteins and their organs of origin and destination. We will then deeply characterize the functions of the secreted proteins, and how their dysregulation contributes to the development of metabolic diseases. Our work provides broadly applicable platforms for the general study of interorgan communication in physiology and disease. We hope that the interorgan communication proteins that we will identify as a result of these studies will lead to novel treatments for diseases involving the entire body.