Sukhwinder Singh Sohal

University of Tasmania, Launceston · School of Health Sciences, College of Health and Medicine

Background We have previously reported arterial remodelling in patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) and suggested that endothelial to mesenchymal transition (EndMT) might be central these changes. This study aims to provide evidence for active EndMT in IPF patients. Methods Lung resections from thirteen patients with IPF and fifteen n...

Epithelial-mesenchymal plasticity (EMP) underlies embryonic development, wound healing, and cancer metastasis and fibrosis. Cancer cells exhibiting EMP often have more aggressive behavior, characterized by drug resistance, and tumor-initiating and immuno-evasive traits. Thus, the EMP status of cancer cells can be a critical indicator of patient pro...

Fact Sheet 3 describes the effects of nicotine on the lung and respiratory tract. Respiratory conditions caused by localised nicotine (not gases, added flavourings or particulates) are plausible given laboratory animal models and clinical evidence demonstrating the potential for nicotine in cigarettes, e-cigarettes or vaping exposure to cause a wid...

Introduction: Pulmonary vascular remodelling in COPD has detrimental consequences on lung physiology. The aim of our study was to provide a comprehensive size-based morphometric quantification of pulmonary arterial remodelling in smokers and in patients with small airway disease and in patients with COPD. Methods: Movat's Pentachrome was done on l...

Management of patients with asthma COPD overlap (ACO) is clinically challenging due to insufficient evidence of pathological changes in these patients. In this cross-sectional study, we evaluated airway remodeling in endobronchial biopsies from a total of 90 subjects, which included 12 ACO, 14 patients with asthma, 12 COPD exsmokers (ES), 11 curren...

The human lung is a vital organ, which is vulnerable to outside insults and injuries [...]

Background COPD is the third leading cause of death worldwide. Cigarette smoke (CS)-induced chronic inflammation inducing airway remodelling, emphysema and impaired lung function is the primary cause. Effective therapies are urgently needed. Human chymase-1 (hCMA1) and it's ortholog mCMA1/mouse mast cell (MC) protease-5 (mMCP5) are exocytosed from...

Asthma, COPD, COVID-19, EGPA, Lung cancer, and Pneumonia are major chronic respiratory diseases (or CRDs) affecting millions worldwide and account for substantial morbidity and mortality. These CRDs are irreversible diseases that affect different parts of the respiratory system, imposing a considerable burden on different socio-economic classes. Al...

Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is a prevalent malignancy with a poor prognosis, whose biomarkers have not been studied in great detail. We have collected genomic data of HNSCC patients from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and analyzed them to get deeper insights into the gene expression pattern. Initially, 793 differentially expressed...

Background: IPF is a progressive, irreversible fibrotic interstitial lung disease. We performed size-based quantitation of pulmonary arterial remodelling in IPF, examined the role of EndMT and effects on lung physiology. Methods: Resected lung tissues from 11 normal controls (NC), and 13 IPF patients, were differentially stained using the Movat Pen...

Rationale: The alarmins IL-33 and HMGB1 (high mobility group box 1) contribute to type-2 inflammation and asthma pathogenesis. Objectives: To determine whether P2Y13 receptor (P2Y13-R), a purinergic G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) and risk allele for asthma, regulates the release of IL-33 and HMGB1. Methods: Bronchial biopsies were obtained...

We previously reported higher ACE2 levels in smokers and patients with COPD. The current study investigates if patients with interstitial lung diseases (ILDs) such as IPF and LAM have elevated ACE2, TMPRSS2, and Furin levels, increasing their risk for SARS-CoV-2 infection and development of COVID-19. Surgically resected lung tissue from IPF, LAM pa...

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic in India has resulted in mass destruction in the form of second wave that hit the country during March-June months of this year. Indian citizens and government were affected by economic, social, and psychological consequences and were left constrained with basic medical facilities in treating the heavy load of p...

Both asthma and COPD are heterogeneous diseases identified by characteristic symptoms and functional abnormalities, with airway obstruction common in both diseases. Asthma COPD overlap (ACO) does not define a single disease but is a descriptive term for clinical use that includes several overlapping clinical phenotypes of chronic airways disease wi...

Background: Smokers and patients with COPD are highly susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 infection, leading to severe COVID-19. Methods: This cross-sectional study involved resected lung tissues from 16 patients with GOLD stage I or II COPD; of which 8 were current smokers COPD (COPD-CS), and 8 ex-smokers COPD (COPD-ES), 7 normal lung function smokers (NLFS...

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) emerged from Wuhan in China before it spread to the entire globe. It causes coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) where mostly individuals present mild symptoms, some remain asymptomatic and some show severe lung inflammation and pneumonia in the host through the induction of a marked in...

Fucoidans are sulfated, complex, fucose-rich polymers found in brown seaweeds. Fucoidans have been shown to have multiple bioactivities, including anti-inflammatory effects, and are known to inhibit inflammatory processes via a number of pathways such as selectin blockade and enzyme inhibition, and have demonstrated inhibition of inflammatory patho...

Serum and glucocorticoid-regulated kinase 1 (SGK1) is a Ser/Thr protein kinase involved in regulating cell survival, growth, proliferation, and migration. Its elevated expression and dysfunction are reported in breast, prostate, hepatocellular, lung adenoma, and renal carcinomas. We have analyzed the SGK1 mutations to explore their impact at the se...

Aberrant expression of Serum-glucocorticoid kinase 1 (SGK1) contributes to the pathogenesis of multiple disorders, including diabetes, hypertension, obesity, fibrosis, and metabolic syndrome. SGK1 variant is expressed in the presence of insulin and several growth factors, eventually modulating various ion channels, carrier proteins, and transcripti...

Epithelial-mesenchymal plasticity (EMP) underlies embryonic development, wound healing, and cancer metastasis and fibrosis. Cancer cells exhibiting EMP often have more aggressive behavior, characterized by drug resistance, and tumor-initiating and immuno-evasive traits. Thus, the EMP status of cancer cells can be a critical indicator of patient pro...

Both communicable and non-communicable chronic respiratory conditions have accorded for suffering of millions of people of all ages and stated to be leading cause of death, morbidity, economic and social pressures, and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) worldwide. These illnesses impair patient's health and negatively impacts families and socie...

Cytokines influence the biological behaviour of prostate cancer (PC) and may influence patient outcome and serve as useful prognostic biomarkers. The aim of the present study was to evaluate cytokine expression levels in prostatic needle biopsy specimens and the association with clinicopathological characteristics of patients with PC. A total of 18...

Following the emergence of electronic cigarette, or vaping product use associated lung injury (EVALI) in 2019 in the US, regulation of e-cigarettes has become globally tighter and the collective evidence of the detrimental effects of vaping has grown. The danger of cellular distress and altered homeostasis is heavily associated with the modifiable...

Introduction Previous reports showed epithelial mesenchymal transition (EMT) as an active process that contributes to small airway (SA) fibrotic pathology. Myofibroblasts are highly active pro-fibrotic cells that secrete excessive and altered extracellular matrix (ECM). Here we relate SA myofibroblast presence with airway remodelling, physiology an...

Tobacco smoking has emerged as a risk factor for increasing the susceptibility to infection from severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) via increased expression of angiotensin-converting enzyme-2 (ACE2) in the lung, linked to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) development. Given the modifiable nature of electronic cigarettes...

Structural changes involving tissue remodelling and fibrosis are major features of many pulmonary diseases, including asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). Abnormal deposition of extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins is a key factor in the development of tissue remodelling that results in sympto...

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an emerging challenging area for the researchers to buckle up against the spread and control of the virus. Since earlier times, the diagnosis has been an important procedure in estimating the fate of epidemics by indicating the extent to which disease has been spread and to the extent, further disease prognosi...

Background and objective COVID‐19 is complicated by acute lung injury, and death in some individuals. It is caused by SARS‐CoV‐2 that requires the ACE2 receptor and serine proteases to enter AEC. We determined what factors are associated with ACE2 expression particularly in patients with asthma and COPD. Methods We obtained lower AEC from 145 peop...

Lung cells are constantly exposed to various internal and external stressors that disrupt protein homeostasis. To cope with these stimuli, cells evoke a highly conserved adaptive mechanism called the unfolded protein response (UPR). UPR stressors can impose greater protein secretory demands on the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) resulting in the develop...

Cellular protein homeostasis in the lungs is constantly disrupted by recurrent exposure to various external and internal stressors, which may cause considerable protein secretion pressure on the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), resulting in the survival and differentiation of these cell types to meet the increased functional demands. Cells are able to i...

Lungs of smokers and COPD are severely compromised and are susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 attack. The lethal combination of enhanced SARS-CoV-2 attachment receptor protein ACE2 along with an increase in endocytic vacuoles will enable viral attachment, entry, and replication. The objective of the study was to identify the presence of SARS-CoV-2 host atta...

Zinc is an essential metal ion involved in many biological processes. Studies have shown that zinc can activate several molecules in the insulin signalling pathway and the concomitant uptake of glucose in skeletal muscle cells. However, there is limited information on other potential pathways that zinc can activate in skeletal muscle. Accordingly,...

The majority of cellular responses to external stimuli are mediated by receptors such as G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) and systems including endoplasmic reticulum stress (ER stress). Since GPCR signalling is pivotal in numerous malignancies, they are widely targeted by a number of clinical drugs. Cancer cells often negatively modulate GPCRs i...

In the first quarter of the 21st century, we are already facing the third emergence of a coronavirus outbreak, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) responsible for the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Comparative genomics can inform a deeper understanding of the pathogenesis of COVID-19. Previous strains of...

Introduction: COVID-19 is a recent emerging pandemic whose prognosis is still unclear. Diagnostic tools are the main players that not only indicate a possible infection but can further restrict the transmission and can determine the extent to which disease progression would occur. Areas covered: In this paper, we have performed a narrative and c...

The forced oscillation technique (FOT) is a non-invasive method to assess airway function by emitting oscillatory signals into the respiratory tract during tidal ventilation. This opinion piece discusses the current use, trialled modification and future directions in utilizing FOT as a novel diagnostic tool for early detection of small airway chang...

Molecular diagnostic tests target the detection of any of the following markers such as the specific region of the viral genome, certain enzyme, RNA-dependent RNA polymerase, the structural proteins such as surface spike glycoprotein, nucleocapsid protein, envelope protein, or membrane protein of SARS-CoV-2. This review highlights the underlying me...

Rationale: COVID-19 is complicated by acute lung injury, and death in some individuals. It is caused by SARS-CoV-2 that requires the ACE2 receptor and serine proteases to enter airway epithelial cells (AECs). Objective: To determine what factors are associated with ACE2 expression particularly in patients with asthma and chronic obstructive pulmona...

In 2019, the United States of America experienced the emergence of the vaping associated lung injury (VALI) epidemic. Vaping is now known to result in the development and progression of severe lung disease in young and healthy. Lack of regulation on electronic cigarettes in the US has resulted in over 2,000 patients and 68 deaths. We examine the cl...

Introduction Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a chronic, progressive, and irreversible fibrotic disease associated with respiratory failure. The disease remains idiopathic, but repeated alveolar epithelium injury, disruption of alveolar-capillary integrity, abnormal vascular repair, and pulmonary vascular remodelling are considered possible p...

Proteomic profiling of patients undergoing intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) for PC can identify unique biomarkers that reflect acute RT-induced toxicity in normal tissues. Our purposes were to examine cytokines before and after IMRT and assess the association with acute genitourinary (GU) and gastrointestinal (GI) toxicity. Eighteen patients...

Viral respiratory infections (VRIs) can spread quickly and cause enormous morbidity and mortality worldwide. These events pose serious threats to public health due to time lags in developing vaccines to activate the acquired immune system. The high variability of people’s symptomatic responses to viral infections, as illustrated in the current COVI...

ACE2, smoking, COPD, and COVID-19.

Background: Radiotherapy (RT) alone or in combination with androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) is most common non-operative treatments for localised prostate cancer (PC). Some circulatory cytokines are believed to play an important role in RT resistance and lead to tumour progression, invasion, and angiogenesis. The aim of this study is to assess th...

The epicenter of the original outbreak in China has high male smoking rates of around 50%, and early reported death rates have an emphasis on older males, therefore the likelihood of smokers being overrepresented in fatalities is high. In Iran, China, Italy, and South Korea, female smoking rates are much lower than males. Fewer females have contrac...

Oxidative stress is a key player of the inflammatory cascade responsible for the initiation of ulcerative colitis (UC). Although the short chain quinone idebenone is considered a potent antioxidant and a mitochondrial electron donor, emerging evidence suggests that idebenone also displays anti-inflammatory activity. This study evaluated the impact...

To the Editor: Immune cells are important in the pathogenesis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), as noted by Agustí and Hogg (Sept. 26 issue).¹ We have shown that in the small airways of patients with mild-to-moderate COPD, there is hypocellularity, with either no change or a decrease in levels of key immune cells, such as neutrophils...

microRNAs (miRNAs) bind to mRNAs and inhibit their expression through post-transcriptionally regulating gene expression. Here, we elaborate upon the concise summary of the role of miRNAs in carcinogenesis with specific attention to precursor respiratory pathogenesis caused by cigarette smoke modulation of these miRNAs. We review how miRNAs are impl...

Objective: To evaluate the adherence to asthma evidence-based guidelines before and after a quality improvement process. Design: A controlled trial was conducted at two regional hospitals (intervention and control hospitals). We performed a retrospective pre-intervention audit, followed by a post-intervention audit 1 year after the implementatio...

Pulmonary macrophages are key to elimination of respiratory pathogens. Oxidative stress and mitochondrial dysfunction are associated with defective macrophage phagocytosis in COPD, with implications for aberrant cellular metabolism and early cell death.

The tobacco industry is now shifting its focus from combustible cigarettes to promoting the "safer" electronic nicotine delivery alternatives. This editorial presents emerging challenges these devices pose to human health. http://bit.ly/2xdAjD0.