Maximilian Plank

• Lecturer at University of Newcastle Australia

Th22 cells are a major source of IL-22 and have been found at sites of infection and in a range of inflammatory diseases. However, their molecular characteristics and functional roles remain largely unknown because of our inability to generate and isolate pure populations. We developed a novel Th22 differentiation assay and generated dual IL-22/IL-...

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is the third leading cause of morbidity and death globally. The lack of effective treatments results from an incomplete understanding of the underlying mechanisms driving COPD pathogenesis. Interleukin (IL)-22 has been implicated in airway inflammation and is increased in COPD patients. However, its role...

Graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) is the major cause of non-relapse morbidity and mortality after allogeneic stem cell transplant (allo-SCT). Chronic cutaneous manifestations of GVHD are common late after allo-SCT with limited treatment options beyond protracted steroid therapy. Cytokines are critical mediators of inflammatory processes during GVHD...

A link between inflammatory disease and bone loss is now recognized. However, limited data exist on the impact of virus infection on bone loss and regeneration. Bone loss results from an imbalance in remodeling, the physiological process whereby the skeleton undergoes continual cycles of formation and resorption. The specific molecular and cellular...

Graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) is the major cause of non-relapse morbidity and mortality after allogeneic stem cell transplant (allo-SCT). Prevention and treatment of GVHD remains inadequate and commonly leads to end-organ dysfunction and opportunistic infection. The role of IL-17 and IL-22 in GVHD remains uncertain, due to an apparent lack of li...

Experimental stroke leads to microglia activation and progressive neuronal loss at sites of secondary neurodegeneration (SND). These lesions are remote from, but synaptically connected to, primary infarction sites. Previous studies have demonstrated that immune cells are present in sites of infarction in the first hours and days after stroke, and a...

Intestinal inflammatory lesions are inherently hypoxic, due to increased metabolic demands created by cellular infiltration and proliferation, and reduced oxygen supply due to vascular damage. Hypoxia stabilizes the transcription factor hypoxia-inducible factor-1α (HIF) leading to a coordinated induction of endogenously protective pathways. We iden...

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding RNA molecules that modulate expression of the majority of genes by inhibiting protein translation. Growing literature has identified functional roles for miRNAs across a broad range of biological processes. As such, miRNAs are recognized as potential disease biomarkers and novel targets for therapies. While s...

MicroRNAs are post-transcriptional regulators of gene expression that are differentially regulated during development and in inflammatory diseases. A role for miRNAs in allergic asthma is emerging and further investigation is required to determine whether they may serve as potential therapeutic targets. We profiled miRNA expression in murine lungs...

Ant uptake in blood, liver and lung. Ant uptake by blood, liver and lung cells following in vivo Ant administration. 50 μg of DY547-labeled Ant was administered intranasally and uptake determined in single cell preparations from blood, liver and lung after 24 h. Percentage of DY547+ cells of CD4+, B220+ and CD11b+ cell populations is shown (A). Mea...

Ant-155 administration has no effect on AHR and Th2 or target mRNA expression. Total lung resistance and dynamic compliance (percentage change over baseline (saline)) in response to inhaled methacholine in OVA/OVA treated with non-specific Scramble or miR-155-5p-specific Ant-155 (A). IL-5, IL-13 and Muc5ac mRNA expression levels in airway wall and...

Characterisation of the murine model of allergic airways disease. Total lung resistance and dynamic compliance (percentage change over baseline (saline)) in response to inhaled methacholine in PBS/OVA, OVA/OVA and OVA/OVA DEX-treated mice (A). Total BALF white blood cell and differential eosinophil (Eos), neutrophil (Neu), lymphocyte (Lym) and macr...

Interleukin-22 (IL-22) belongs to the IL-10 cytokine family and is expressed in the lung during infection with Chlamydia muridarum (Cmu) and Pneumonia Virus of Mice (PVM). IL-22 can have both pro-inflammatory and tissue protective roles depending on the inflammatory context, tissue tropisms, and local cytokine milieu. Several cell types can produce...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1004549.].

Author Summary MicroRNAs regulate pathogen recognition pathways by modulating translation. In the immune system, miRNAs have been identified as important regulators of gene expression programs, which regulate differentiation, growth and function of innate and adaptive immune cells. Using miRNA microarray, we demonstrated that lung miRNAs were diffe...

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small noncoding RNA molecules that can modulate mRNA levels through RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC)-mediated degradation. Recognition of target mRNAs occurs through imperfect base pairing between an miRNA and its target, meaning that each miRNA can target a number of different mRNAs to modulate gene expression. miRNAs ha...

MicroRNAs are small non-coding RNAs that bind to multiple target mRNAs to control gene expression post-transcriptionally by inhibiting translation. In mammalian cells, microRNAs play important roles in a diverse array of cellular processes (e.g. cell proliferation and differentiation). However, alterations in their levels may compromise cellular fu...

Respiratory virus infections are often pathogenic, driving severe inflammatory responses. Most research has focused on localized effects of virus infection and inflammation. However, infection can induce broad-reaching, systemic changes that are only beginning to be characterized. In this study, we assessed the impact of acute pneumovirus infection...

Background: Emerging evidence suggests that non-olfactory tissues and cells can express olfactory receptors (ORs), however, the exact function of ectopic OR expression remains unknown. We have previously shown in mouse models that a unique cooperation between interferon-γ (IFN-γ) and lipopolysaccharide (LPS) drives the activation of pulmonary macr...

Severe asthma is associated with T helper (TH) 2 and 17 cell activation, airway neutrophilia and phosphoinositide-3-kinase (PI3K) activation. Asthma exacerbations are commonly caused by rhinovirus (RV) and also associated with PI3K-driven inflammation. Anthraquinone derivatives have been shown to reduce PI3K-mediated AKT phosphorylation in-vitro. T...

Chronic inflammatory diseases of the lung are leading causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Many of these disorders can be attributed to abnormal immune responses to environmental stimuli and infections. As such, understanding the innate host defense pathways and their regulatory systems will be critical to developing new approaches to treat...

Chronic inflammatory diseases (e.g. asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or COPD) are leading causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide and effective treatments are limited. These disorders can often be attributed to abnormal immune responses to environmental stimuli and infections. Mechanisms leading to inflammation are complex, resu...

Glucocorticoids are used as mainstay therapy for asthma, but some patients remain resistant to therapy. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are important regulators of the immune system by promoting the catabolism of their target transcripts as well as attenuating their translation. The role of miRNA in regulating allergic inflammation remains largely unknown. Bloc...

Allergic asthma is an inflammatory disease of the lung characterized by abnormal T helper-2 (T(H)2) lymphocyte responses to inhaled antigens. The molecular mechanisms leading to the generation of T(H)2 responses remain unclear, although toll-like receptors (TLRs) present on innate immune cells play a pivotal role in sensing molecular patterns and i...

Cell division in rod-shaped bacteria nearly always occurs exactly at mid-cell and is dependent on the formation of the cytokinetic FtsZ ring and its associated division proteins. Many thousands of copies of division, or septum-specific proteins assemble at this site and may lead to the exclusion of other integral membrane proteins that are normally...