Priv. Doz. Mag. Dr. Gernot Schabbauer

work address:

Medical University of Vienna
Institute of Physiology
Centre of Physiology and Pharmacology
Schwarzspanierstrasse 17, 1090 Vienna, Austria

Phone: +43 (0)1 40160 - 31427

E-Mail: gernot.schabbauer@meduniwien.ac.at 

Homepage: www.meduniwien.ac.at/hp/zpp

Know-how and research interests

The main focus of my lab is concentrated on the elucidation of immune-modulating signaling pathways and their involvement in pathophysiologic processes in innate immune cells such as macrophages and dendritic cells. In particular I am interested in the role of the PI3-Kinase pathway and its antagonistic lipid phosphatase PTEN in the modulation of infectious and non-infectious inflammatory processes. We could show that PI3K downregulates inflammation and coagulation in acute inflammatory processes ⁴. Genetic analysis revealed an important immune-modulatory role not only for PI3K but also for PTEN in LPS mediated TLR4 signaling in macrophages ². Recently we could extend our findings to models including clinically relevant pathogens, showing that PTEN deficiency specifically in myeloid cells dampens the innate immune response to bacterial infections of the lung ^1,3.

Taken together we postulate that the PI3K/PTEN pathway essentially contributes to the regulation of inflammatory processes in innate immune cells.

Currently we are investigating effects of cell-type specific PTEN deficiency in murine models of non-infectious acute and chronic inflammation and different models of autoimmunity. For instance we could find that antigen presentation was dramatically altered in PTEN deficient mice resulting in differential T-cell polarization in collagen induced arthritis. We aim to elucidate the molecular mechanisms relevant for this interesting phenomenon ⁵.

Furthermore we found alternative activation of macrophage depending on PTEN expression. We assume that this type of activation of macrophage will alter the course of chronic inflammation and inflammation induced colon cancer. This will be done in murine models of fibrosis and colitis.

Research topic

The role of signaling pathways in acute and chronic inflammation

Techniques and infrastructure of the research group

Diverse basic molecular and cellular biology techniques, immunological assays, macrophage and dendritic cell analysis, functional T-cell assays, flow cytometry, immunohistochemistry, confocal microscopy, transgenic animals, animal models of acute and chronic inflammation.

 5 selected publications

  1    P. Gunzl, "Anti-inflammatory properties of the PI3K pathway are mediated by IL-10/DUSP regulation," J. Leukoc. Biol. 88(6), 1259 (2010).

  2    J. P. Luyendyk, "Genetic analysis of the role of the PI3K-Akt pathway in lipopolysaccharide-induced cytokine and tissue factor gene expression in monocytes/macrophages," J. Immunol. 180(6), 4218 (2008).

  3    G. Schabbauer, "Myeloid PTEN promotes inflammation but impairs bactericidal activities during murine pneumococcal pneumonia," J. Immunol. 185(1), 468 (2010).

  4    G. Schabbauer, "PI3K-Akt pathway suppresses coagulation and inflammation in endotoxemic mice," 24(10), Arterioscl.Thromb.Vasc.Biol. 1963 (2004).

  5    S. Blüml, "PTEN in antigen presenting cells is a master regulator for Th17-mediated autoimmune pathology," submitted (2013).