Li Qian, PhD Assistant Professor Office: 919-962-0340 E-mail: li_qian@med.unc.edu

Research Interests

Our laboratory is interested in developing innovative approaches to regenerate or repair an injured heart. Our goal is to understand the molecular basis of cardiomyocyte specification and maturation and apply this knowledge to improve efficiency and clinical applicability of cellular reprogramming in heart disease. To achieve these goals, we utilize in vivo modeling of cardiac disease in the mouse, including myocardial infarction (MI), cardiac hypertrophy, chronic heart failure and congenital heart disease (CHD). In addition, we take advantage of traditional mouse genetics, cell and molecular biology, biochemistry and newly developed reprogramming technologies (iPSC and iCM) to investigate the fundamental events underlying the progression of various cardiovascular diseases as well as to discover the basic mechanisms of cell reprogramming.

Publications

Qian L., Huang Y, Foley A, Vedantham V, Spencer CI, Conway SJ, Fu JD, Srivastava D. In vivo reprogramming of murine cardiac fibroblasts into cardiomyocytes. (2012) Nature. 485, 593–598.

Qian L. and Bodmer R. (2012) Probing the polygenic basis of cardiomyopathies in Drosophila J Cell Mol Med. 16, 972-7.

Qian L.^#,*, Wythe J.D. *, Liu J., Ocoor K., Mohapatra B., Otway R.T., Fatkin D., Semsarian S., Winlaw D., Dunwoodie S., Vogler G., Cartry J., Huang Y., Crawley T., Taghli-Lamallem O., Srivastava D., Towbin J.A., Harvey R.P., Bruneau B.G., Bodmer R^#. (2011) Tinman/Nkx2-5 acts via miR-1 and upstream of Cdc42 to regulate heart function across species  J  Cell Biol. 193, 1181-96.

King I.N.*, Qian L.*, Liang J., Huang Y., Shieh J., Kwon C. and Srivastava D. (2011) A Genome-wide Screen Reveals a Role for microRNA-1 in Modulating Cardiac Cell Polarity. Developmental Cell 20, 497-510.

Qian L. *, Van Laake LW. *, Huang Y. and Srivastava D. (2011) miR-24 inhibits ER-mediated apoptosis and preserves cardiac function after myocardial infarction by repressing Bim. J Exp Med. 208, 549-560.

Van Laake L.W.*, Qian L.*, Cheng P., Huang Y., Hsiao E.C., Conklin B., Srivastava D. Reporter-Based Isolation of Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell- and Embryonic Stem Cell-Derived Cardiomyocytes Reveals Limited Gene Expression Variance. (2010) Circ. Res. 107:304–347.

Qian L. and Srivastava D. (2010) Monkeying around with cardiac progenitors. J Clin Invest. 120,1034-1036.

Qian L. and Bodmer R. (2009) Partial loss of GATA factor Pannier impairs adult heart function in Drosophila. Hum Mol Genet. 18, 3153-3163.

Kwon C., Qian L. *, Cheng P. *, Nigam V., Arnold J. and Srivastava D. (2009) A Regulatory Pathway Involving Notch1/β-Catenin/Isl1 Determines Cardiac Progenitor Cell Fate. Nat. Cell Bio. 11, 951-7.

Leal S.M., Qian L., Lacin H., Bodmer R., Skeath J.B. (2009) Neuromancer1 and Neuromancer2 regulate cell fate specification in the developing embryonic CNS of Drosophila melanogaster. Dev. Biol. 325,138-50.

Qian L., Mohapatra B., Akasaka T., Liu J., Ocorr K., Towbin J.A., Bodmer R. (2008) Transcription factor neuromancer/TBX20 is required for cardiac function in Drosophila with implications for human heart disease. P.N.A.S. 105,19833-8.

Liu J., Qian L., Han Z. and Bodmer R. (2008) Spatial specificity of mesodermal even-skipped expression relies on multiple repressors. Dev. Biol. 313, 876-86.

Qian L., Liu J. and Bodmer R. (2008) Heart development in Drosophila. In: Cardiovascular Development (Advances in Developmental Biology. Vol. 18) (Bodmer R. ed) Elsevier, Amsterdam, New York. p.1-29.

Ocorr K., Perrin L., Lim HY., Qian L., Wu X., Bodmer R. (2007) Genetic control of heart function and aging in Drosophila. Trends Cardiovasc Med. 17, 177-82.

Zaffran S., Reim I., Qian L., Lo P.C., Bodmer R. and Frasch M. (2006) Cardioblast-intrinsic Tinman activity controls proper diversification and differentiation of myocardial cells in Drosophila. Development. 133, 4073-4083.

Wang D., Qian L., Xiong H., Liu J., Neckameyer W.S., Oldham S., Wang J., Bodmer R. and Zhang Z. (2006 ) Suppression of PINK1 inactivation induced dopaminergic neurodegeneration by antioxidants in Drosophila. P.N.A.S.103, 13520-13525 (Cover Paper).

Liu J., Qian L., Wessells RJ.,  Bidet Y., Jagla K., and Bodmer R (2006). Hedgehog and RAS pathways cooperate in the anterior-posterior specification and positioning of cardiac progenitor cells. Dev.Biol. 290, 373-385.

Qian L., Liu J., and Bodmer R. (2005). Slit and Robo control cardiac cell polarity and morphogenesis. Curr. Biol.15, 2271-2278.

Qian L., Liu J., and Bodmer R. (2005).  Neuromancer (H15/midline) T-box20-related genes promote cell fate specification and morphogenesis of the Drosophila heart.  Dev. Biol. 279, 509–524.