Department of Medical Research

Our laboratory use primary nerve cells as a platform to study neurodegenerative diseases, especially for Parkinson's disease. We are trying to find drugs to protect dopaminergic neurons and to investigate its mechanism, and as a basis for animal experiments. In addition, We discover that neuropeptide urocortin can affect cell cycle resulting in inducing neural stem cell differentiation. This peptide can epigenetically regulate dopaminergic neuron differentiation related gene, as a consequence, it promote the dopamine precursor cells toward its destined phenotype. We hope to utilize the developmental gene expression mechanism of dopaminergic neuron in the treatment of Parkinson's disease.

1.

Huang HY, Liu DD, Chang HF, Chen WF, Hsu HR, Kuo JS, Wang MJ. (2012) Histone deacetylase inhibition mediates urocortin-induced antiproliferation and neuronal differentiation in neural stem cells. Stem Cells 30(12):2760-73

2.

Huang HY, Chiu TL, Chang HF, Hsu HR, Pang CY, Liew HK, Wang MJ. (2015) Epigenetic regulation contributes to urocortin-enhanced midbrain dopaminergic neuron differentiation. Stem Cells 33(5):1601-17.

3.

Huang HY, Chang HF, Tsai MJ, Chen JS, Wang MJ. (2016) 6-Mercaptopurine attenuates tumor necrosis factor-α production in microglia through Nur77-mediated transrepression and PI3K/Akt/mTOR signaling-mediated translational regulation. J Neuroinflammation 13(1):78.