Peng Shang, PhD

Retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) degeneration plays a key role in the pathogenesis of age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Understanding the molecular mechanism of RPE degeneration is essential to identify therapeutic targets to prevent or treat AMD. My research interest is to investigate cellular changes during RPE degeneration, including mitochondrial dysfunction, epithelial mesenchymal transition, autophagy and vesicular trafficking defects in the RPE.

In Ferrington laboratory, we utilize RPE cells differentiated from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC-RPE) generated from both eyebank donors and AMD patients and work with collaborators who provide complementary expertise in stem cell biology, global protein analysis and metabolomics to investigate the underlying pathophysiology of AMD and to identify putative therapeutic drugs to treat AMD.

Shang P, Stepicheva N, Teel K, McCauley A, Fitting CS, Hose S, Grebe R, Yazdankhah M, Ghosh S, Liu H, Strizhakova A, Weiss J, Bhutto IA, Lutty GA, Jayagopal A, Qian J, Sahel JA, Samuel Zigler J Jr, Handa JT, Sergeev Y, Rajala RVS, Watkins S, Sinha D. bA3/A1-crystallin regulates apical polarity and EGFR endocytosis in retinal-pigmented epithelial cells. Communications Biology. Volume 4, 850 (2021).

Shang P, Stepicheva NA, Liu H, Chowdhury O, Franks J, Sun M, Hose S, Ghosh S, Yazdankhah M, Strizhakova A, Stolz DB, Zigler JS Jr, Sinha D. A novel method of mouse RPE explant culture and effective introduction of transgenes using adenoviral transduction for in vitro studies in AMD. International Journal of Molecular Sciences. 2021 Nov 5;22(21):11979.

Yazdankhah M, Shang P, Ghosh S, Hose S, Liu H, Weiss J, Fitting CS, Bhutto IA, Zigler JS Jr, Qian J, Sahel JA, Sinha D, Stepicheva NA. Role of glia in optic nerve. Prog Retin Eye Res. 2021 Mar;81:100886.

Yazdankhah M, Shang P, Ghosh S, Bhutto IA, Stepicheva N, Grebe R, Hose S, Weiss J, Luo T, Mishra S, Riazuddin SA, Ghosh A, Handa JT, Lutty GA, Zigler JS Jr, Sinha D. Modulating EGFR-MTORC1-autophagy as a potential therapy for persistent fetal vasculature (PFV) disease. Autophagy. 2019 Sep 1:1-13.

Ghosh S, Shang P, Terasaki H, Stepicheva N, Hose S, Yazdankhah M, Weiss J, Sakamoto T, Bhutto IA, Xia S, Zigler JS Jr, Kannan R, Qian J, Handa JT, Sinha D. A Role for bA3/A1-crystallin in Type 2 EMT of RPE Cells Occurring in Dry Age-Related Macular Degeneration. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci. 2018 Jul; 59(4): AMD104–AMD113.

Shang P, Stepicheva NA, Hose S, Zigler JS Jr, Sinha D. Primary Cell Cultures from the Mouse Retinal Pigment Epithelium. J. Vis. Exp. (133), e56997, 2018.

Wang J, Zibetti C, Shang P, Sripathi SR, Zhang P, Cano M, Hoang T, Xia S, Ji H, Merbs SL, Zack DJ, Handa JT, Sinha D, Blackshaw S, Qian J. ATAC-Seq analysis reveals a widespread decrease of chromatin accessibility in age-related macular degeneration. Nature Communications, 2018; 9: 1364.

Shang P, Valapala M, Grebe R, Hose S, Ghosh S, Bhutto IA, Handa JT, Lutty GA, Lu L, Wan J, Qian J, Sergeev Y, Puertollano R, Zigler JS Jr, Xu GT, Sinha D. The amino acid transporter SLC36A4 regulates the amino acid pool in retinal pigmented epithelial cells and mediates the mechanistic target of rapamycin, complex 1 signaling. Aging Cell, 2017 Apr;16(2):349-359.

Ghosh S, Shang P, Yazdankhah M, Bhutto I, Hose S, Montezuma SR, Luo T, Chattopadhyay S, Qian J, Lutty GA, Ferrington DA, Zigler JS Jr, Sinha D. Activating the AKT2/NFkB/LCN-2 axis elicits an inflammatory response in age-related macular degeneration. The Journal of Pathology. 2017 Apr;241(5):583-588.

Sinha D, Valapala M, Shang P, Hose S, Grebe R, Lutty GA, Zigler JS Jr, Kaarniranta K, Handa JT. Lysosomes: Regulators of autophagy in the retinal pigmented epithelium (2016). Exp Eye Res 144, 46-53.

2019 Junior Trainee award in the Biology and Chemistry of Vision Conference, Steamboat Springs, CO, USA
2018 Travel fellowship award from the International Society for Eye Research, Belfast, UK