Kat Barnett

Chronic sensing of host-derived lipids is an all-in-one signal that primes and activates NLRP3. Activation of the NLRP3 inflammasome leads to the production of bioactive interleukin (IL)-1β fostering atherosclerosis. The current dogma is that NLRP3 must be first primed by microbial stimuli, know...

#InflammasomePower! 💥New paper alert💥 How is NLPR3 primed & activated in chronic non-communicable inflammatory diseases? With @oceanedufies.bsky.social &co we show that chronic exposure to oxPAPC drives NRF2 activation that primes & activates NLRP3 sustaining #atherosclerosis in mice & humans! 👇👇👇

Enteropathogenic bacteria evade ROCK-driven epithelial cell extrusion - Nature The bacterial ubiquitin ligase NleL evades host defence mechanisms both by inhibiting pyroptosis and by preventing infected intestinal epithelial cells from being extruded into the lumen and expelled ...

Check out our new publication, a collaboration with Giovanni Luchetti and Vishva Dixit @ Genentech.
We show that the E.coli effector NleL inhibits intestinal epithelial cell extrusion after #inflammasome activation via degrading the kinases ROCK1 and 2!!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Explainer 1/8

It’s #BlackInMicro week! This year’s theme is HARMONY and we have a great program scheduled. You can find more info on our website: blackinmicrobiology.org.

Register for free to check it out. Everyone is welcome! 🦠

#DAMPsPower! Balachandran, Yin &co show @nature.com that upon influenza #IAV or herpes #HSV1 virus infection, ZBP1 induces cell death by sensing #host-derived endogenous retroelement Z-RNAs produced in response to virulence factors! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A cGAS-mediated mechanism in naked mole-rats potentiates DNA repair and delays aging Efficient DNA repair might make possible the longevity of naked mole-rats. However, whether they have distinctive mechanisms to optimize functions of DNA repair suppressors is unclear. We find that na...

#LiveForever! Chen, Mao &co show @science.org that not all #cGAS are equals & that naked mole-rats one bears a 4 amino acid mutation which enhances DNA repair & when transferred in aged mice dampens frailty, hair graying, inflammatory & senescence markers! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Support Discovery Research Week at Michigan Medicine! From September 29 to October 5, 2025, we invite you to join us for Discovery Research Week to celebrate and support our scientists and learners who lay the groundwork for the medical breakthroughs of ...

It’s Discovery Research Week! Every day, the bold work of our U-M researchers and scientists points the way to life-changing treatments and cures patients and families need. Visit victors.us/researchsep25 Please consider supporting the work of departments like M&I.

Wall teichoic acid is required for DNA-triggered innate immune receptor activation by Staphylococcus aureus Receptors that stimulate inflammation are commonly activated by ligands that are buried within microbial cells. The mechanisms that facilitate immunostimulatory ligand release from microbes during inf...

Thrilled to share my work from the @jkagan1.bsky.social lab!

TLDR: O-acetylation and wall teichoic acid compete for space on S. aureus peptidoglycan. This competition regulates DNA release, and thus immune receptor activation, during infection!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

#microsky #immunosky

The mechanism of STING NF-κB signaling has remained a mystery. An exciting new study from the Paludan lab now uses data throughout animal STING evolution to provide new answers – including isolating white blood cells from turtles and carp!

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

An NLRP3-stimulatory adjuvant improves the immunogenicity of influenza virus vaccines in mice and non-human primates | mBio The generation of vaccines that stimulate T cell activities is an unmet need for the scientific community, as T cells are the primary mediators of immune memory. In this study, we report a new vaccine...

An NLRP3 stimulatory universal influenza vaccine.
We report an NLRP3 stimulus that generates hyperactive dendritic cells (hDCs).
journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

Epigenetic silencing of interleukin-10 by host-derived oxidized phospholipids supports a lethal inflammatory response to infections Phagocytes initiate immunity to invading microorganisms by detecting pathogen-associated molecular patterns via pattern recognition receptors. Pathoge…

💥 #ImmunometabolismPower! Excited to have this officially out @cp-immunity.bsky.social 💥 We show that pathogens induce the host to produce oxidized lipids which rewire the #metabolism of #macrophages, causing #epigenetic modifications which dampen anti-inflammatory IL-10, exacerbating #inflammation!

So cool!!! Congratulations, Ivan and co!!

Opinion: Antagonism to mRNA Technology Is Killing Our Best Shot At a Cure For Cancer The recent announcement of RFK Jr.’s termination of mRNA vaccine contracts is the latest effort to undermine this promising technology at the federal level. Pharmaceutical companies and private invest...

The recent cuts to federal mRNA research funding are killing our best chance to cure cancer.

Read my OP-ED on this topic in BioSpace, linked below.
www.biospace.com/drug-develop...

Why does RNA undergo glycosylation? Excited to have our paper out. We in collab w/ Ryan Flynn @raflynn5.bsky.social show N-glycans on glycoRNA hide self-RNA from endosomal TLRs promoting silent removal of dead cells. www.nature.com/articles/s41... @uconnresearch.bsky.social @uconnhealth.bsky.social

Senate panel rejects Trump cuts to NIH, other health agencies (The Hill) The Senate Appropriations Committee rejected the Trump administration’s massive proposed funding cut to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), advancing a ...

Sometimes the news is actually worth reading.
"Senate panel rejects Trump cuts to NIH, other health agencies" l.smartnews.com/p-5Vc5EAFi/f...

Extra kudos and thanks to all the staff at NIH and NSF and other federal funding agencies for working extra hard in very small windows of opportunity to get grants reviewed and funds released before the attention-addled federal policies change again (on an hourly basis).

Oxidized phospholipid damage signals as modulators of immunity | Open Biology Damage-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs) are self-derived molecules released during tissue damage that influence immune responses. Phospholipids, essential to cell membranes and lung surfactants, ...

Everything you wanted to know about oxidized lipids & immunity, in one review. We explain how oxidized lipids impact inflammation, dendritic cells, anti-tumor immunity and more.
Kudos to Joon Choi for his exceptional work.
royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

MyD88 polymerization and association to cellular membranes in a yeast heterologous model - Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences MyD88 is a key mediator of Toll-like receptor (TLR) signaling, orchestrating the innate immune response upon stimulation by pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs). Structurally, MyD88 consists...

MyD88 cell biology explored in yeast. The fantastic @VictorJCid
and colleagues reveal an unexpected variety of organelles MyD88 can bind in budding yeast.
Kudos to all authors on this exciting finding.
link.springer.com/article/10.1...

No better time to call or email your members of Congress. Next year’s NIH budget is being debated in the Senate. A new nonpartisan campaign is making it easy to defend science and protect America’s innovation. Just follow this link to contact your representatives: www.protectscienceandinnovation.org

Epigenetic silencing of interleukin-10 by host-derived oxidized phospholipids supports a lethal inflammatory response to infections Upon pathogen detection, phagocytes trigger immunity. This process induces tissue stress and the formation of host-derived molecules that further tune immune responses. We show that host-derived oxidi...

#EpigeneticPower! 💥 #NewPaperAlert! We show @cp-immunity.bsky.social that endogenous oxidized lipids decide whether host survives or dies during #sepsis, #ARDS, or Staph infection! Ox lipids bind & inhibit #AKT, boosting inhibitory H3K27 methylation via EZH2 & blocking #IL10!

Epigenetic silencing of interleukin-10 by host-derived oxidized phospholipids supports a lethal inflammatory response to infections Phagocytes initiate immunity to invading microorganisms by detecting pathogen-associated molecular patterns via pattern recognition receptors. Pathoge…

A new function for an ancient innate immune stimulus.
Zanoni et al report that oxidized lipids control IL-10 expression, impacting host defense and disease. Kudos to the authors on this important discovery www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

MLKL activates the cGAS-STING pathway by releasing mitochondrial DNA upon necroptosis induction Necroptosis drives inflammation through membrane rupture-mediated DAMPs release. Independently of membrane damage, Ding et al. revealed phosphorylated MLKL permeabilizes mitochondrial membranes and in...

#WeekendRead! #NoTimeToDie! #InterferonPower! Wang &co show @cp-molcell.bsky.social that MLKL not only drives #necroptosis but also directly triggers IFNb production by releasing mitochondrial DNA & activating cGAS-#STING, which exacerbates #colitis! www.cell.com/molecular-ce...

Beyond excited to share our #NewPaper in @cellcellpress.bsky.social! Inflamed environments acidify intracellular #pH. BRD4 senses this via transcriptional condensates, tuning #macrophage responses to match demand and consequences of #inflammation authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...

Congratulations! Beautiful work

Macrophage-derived oncostatin M repairs the lung epithelial barrier during inflammatory damage Tissue repair programs must function alongside antiviral immunity to restore the lung epithelial barrier following infection. We found that macrophage-derived oncostatin M (OSM) counteracted the patho...

🎉 Over the moon to share the first paper from my lab!! We discovered an unexpected role for the cytokine OSM in lung epithelial homeostasis and repair. 🧵 1/n www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Please spread the word and apply for the A Oveta Fuller award!

Dendritic cells activate pyroptosis and effector-triggered apoptosis to restrict Legionella infection | mBio The innate immune system senses bacterial pathogens by employing pattern recognition receptors that detect pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) and guard proteins that monitor pathogen disru...

Thrilled that our latest paper showing that DCs undergo either pyroptosis or apoptosis upon bacterial blockade of host translation to restrict Legionella is now online at the @asm.org journal mBio! Congrats to 1st author @vvazquez.bsky.social & co-authors! 🎉 journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

Congratulations!! 🥳

NIH indirect cost cuts will affect the economy and employment - Nature Human Behaviour Nature Human Behaviour - NIH indirect cost cuts will affect the economy and employment

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Every $1 spent on NIH funding returns nearly $3 to the economy - an almost 200% return on investment💰.
Also 99% of drugs developed 2010-2019 were funded by NIH ‼️🤯
Cutting NIH funding not only hurts the economy but will hurt families and patients 😔💔

Donald Trump’s proposed budget would gut American science It would slash cancer research, drug trials, space exploration, and so much more.

Cutting $20 billion to NIH over 25 years may save $500 billion on paper, but it’d end up costing $8.2 trillion in lost human health.

But NIH isn't the only thing being cut. The budget also slashes all NSF-funded science by 73 percent. NASA faces “the biggest single-year cut to NASA in history."

Clustering of NLRP3 induced by membrane or protein scaffolds promotes inflammasome assembly - Nature Communications NLRP3 inflammasome activation is critical for the induction of protective immunity, but molecular insights are still lacking. Here, the authors express NLRP3 variants targeted to different cellular lo...

Are there spatial restrictions in NLRP3 #inflammasome activation? I am super excited to share our new study spearheaded by amazing @elvirab.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/s41...