
Hongmei Ren, Ph.D.
Education
Ph.D: Institute of Brain Chemistry and Human Nutrition, London Metropolitan University (2007)
Postdoctoral: Cardiovascular Research Center, University of Kentucky (Dr. Andrew Morris)
Research Statement
Dr. Ren’s research interests focus on lipid metabolism, its association with autophagic clearance of mitochondria (mitophagy) and homeostasis, and its effects on cardiac and skeletal muscle function. Dysfunctional mitophagy contributes to a number of human metabolic diseases, including aging, neurodegenerative disease, diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. Discovering pathways controlling clearance of damaged mitochondria is critical for developing treatments for these diseases. Dr. Ren’s laboratory recently discovered that lipin1, which catalyzes the penultimate step in triglyceride synthesis, is critical for mitophagy. Her current study is exploring the role of dysfunctional mitochondrial clearance associated with lipin1 deficiency in skeletal muscle physiology and pathology.
ACADEMICS
MENTORSHIP
PhD students
08/2018 - Present Abdulrahman Jama
01/2018 - Present Abdullah A Alshudukhi
Master students
10/2020-Present Alexandra Sue Brown
10/2019-Present Rajsi Yogeshkumar Thaker
09/2018 - 08/2019 Sandhya R. Sattiraju, graduated in 2020
10/2016 - 07/2018 Abdulrahman Jama, graduated in 2018 and accepted by the BMS program at WSU
07/2016 - 12/2017 Abdullah A Alshudukhi, graduated in 2018 and accepted by the BMS program at WSU
Undergraduate students
01/2017 - Present Rebecca Reese, won first award of Undergraduate Research Poster Session of the Inaugural Biomedical Research Conference in 2018 and received the Considine Scholar award in 2019
04/2019- Present Elise Hill
04/2019- 04/2020 Emily Ann Sustarich
08/2019- 12/2019 Ahmad Iskandarani
01/2017 – 01/2019 Nour A. Wahdan
08/2018 – 01/2019 Steven Cole
09/2018-12/2018 Marsh E Caitlin
01/2018-09/2018 Austin Blaise Calkins
THESIS COMMITTEE
PhD students
Abdullah A Alshudukhi (Supervisor) 01/2018-Present BMB
Abdulrahman Jama (Supervisor) 08/2018-Present BMB
Astha Shakya (Committee member) 04/2018-Present BMB
Amanda Kaye Myers (Committee member) 04/2018-Present BMB
Krushangi Nirav Shah (Committee member) 01/2018-Present BMB
Jananie Rockwood (Committee member) 07/2019-Present NCBP
Ishita Haider (Committee member) 01/2018-Present Biological Sciences (BS), graduated in 2020
James M. Readler (Committee member) 01/2018-01/2019 BS, graduated in 2019
Master students
Rajsi Yogeshkumar Thaker (Supervisor) 09/2019-Present BMB
Sandhya R. Sattiraju (Supervisor) 09/2018-08/2020 BMB Graduated
Akshay Hira (Committee member) 01/2018-08/2019 BMB Graduated
Eid Alshammari (Committee member) 01/2018-07/2019 BMB Graduated
Astha Shakya (Committee member) 01/2018-08/2019 BMB Graduated
Sarah E. Kovar (Committee member) 01/2017-08/2018 BMB Graduated
Abdulrahman Jama (Supervisor) 10/2016-07/2018 BMB Graduated, won Graduate Student Excellence award
Abdullah A Alshudukhi (Supervisor) 07/2016-12/2017 BMB Graduated
Amjad Aljagthmi (Committee member) 08/2016-08/2017 BMB Graduated
Hitham Aldharee (Committee member) 08/2016-08/2017 BMB Graduated
Minyi Chen (Committee member) 08/2016-08/2017 BMB Graduated
Publications
- Sattiraju SR, Jama A, Alshudukhi AA, Townsend NE, Miranda DR, Reese RR, Voss AA, Ren H. Loss of membrane integrity drives myofiber death in lipin1-deficient skeletal muscle. Physiological Reports. (2020); 8: e14620.
- Miranda DR, Reed E, Jama A, Bottomley M, Ren H, Rich MM, Voss AA. Mechanisms of altered skeletal muscle action potentials in the R6/2 mouse model of Huntington's disease. Am J Physiol Cell Physiol. (2020); 319(1):C218-C232. PMID: 32432924.
- Dong L, Ma L, Ma GH, Ren H. Genome-wide Analysis Reveals DNA Methylation Alterations in Obesity Associated with High Risk of Colorectal Cancer. Sci Rep. (2019) 9(1): 5100. PMID: 30911103.
- Jama A, Huang D, Alshudukhi AA, Chrast R, Ren H. Lipin1 is required for skeletal muscle development by regulating MEF2c and MyoD expression. J Physiol. (2019) 597(3):889-901. doi: 10.1113/JP276919. PMID: 30511745.
- Alshudukhi AA, Zhu J, Huang D, Jama A, Smith JD, Wang QJ, Esser KA, Ren H. Lipin1 regulates Bnip3-mediated mitophagy in glycolytic muscle, FASEB J. (2018) fj201800374. PMID: 29939786.
- Dong L, Ren H. Blood-based DNA Methylation Biomarkers for Early Detection of Colorectal Cancer. J Proteomics Bioinform. (2018) 11(6):120-126. PMID: 30034186.
- Federico L, Yang L, Brandon J, Panchatcharam M, Ren H, Mueller P, Sunkara M, Escalante-Alcalde D, Morris AJ, Smyth SS. Lipid phosphate phosphatase 3 regulates adipocyte sphingolipid synthesis, but not developmental adipogenesis or diet-induced obesity in mice. PLoS One. (2018) 13(6): e0198063. PMID: 29889835.
- Jiang W, Zhu J, Zhuang X, Zhang X, Wu T, Esser KA, Ren H. Lipin1 regulates skeletal muscle differentiation through ERK activation and Cyclin D complex regulated cell cycle withdrawal. J Biol Chem. (2015) 290(39):23646-55, PMID: 26296887, PMCID: PMC4583021.
- Subramanian T, Ren H, Subramanian KL, Sunkara M, Onono F, Morris AJ,Spielmann P. Design and Synthesis Of Non-Hydrolyzable Homoisoprenoid α-Monofluorophosphonate Inhibitors of PPAPDC Family Integral Membrane Lipid Phosphatases. Bioorg Med Chem Lett. (2014) Sep 15;24(18):4414-7, PMID: 25150376, PMCID: PMC4206410.
- Mitra M, Chen Z, Ren H, Harris T, Chambers K, Hall AM, Nadra K, Klein S, Chrast R, Su X, Morris AJ, Finck BN. Mice with an adipocyte-specific lipin 1 separation-of-function allele reveal new roles for phosphatidic acid in metabolic regulation. PNAS. (2013) 110(2):642-7. PMID: 23267081 PMCID: PMC3545773.
- Ren H, Panchatcharam M, Mueller P, Escalante-Alcalde D, Morris AJ, Smyth SS. Lipid phosphate phosphatase (LPP3) and vascular development. Biochim Biophys Acta. (2013)1831(1):126-32. PMID:22835522.
- Xiang B, Zhang G, Ren H, Sunkara M, Morris AJ, Gartner TK, Smyth SS, Li Z. The P2Y(12) antagonists, 2MeSAMP and cangrelor, inhibit platelet activation through P2Y(12)/G(i)-dependent mechanism. PLoS One. (2012) 7(12):e51037. PMID: 23236426 PMCID: PMC3516503.
- Federico L, Ren H, Mueller P, Wu T, Liu S, Popovic J, Blalock E, Sunkara M, Ovaa H, Albers HM, Mills GB, Morris AJ, Smyth SS. Autotaxin and its product lysophosphatidic acid suppress brown adipose differentiation and promote diet-induced obesity in mice. Mol Endocrinol. (2012) 26(5):786-97. PMID:21803291; PMCID: PMC3167228.
- Pihlajamäki J, Lerin C, Itkonen P, Boes T, Floss T, Schroeder J, Dearie F, Crunkhorn S, Burak F, Jimenez-Chillaron JC, Kuulasmaa T, Miettinen P, Park PJ, Nasser I, Zhao Z, Zhang Z, Xu Y, Wurst W, Ren H, Morris AJ, Stamm S, Goldfine AB, Laakso M, Patti ME. Expression of the splicing factor gene SFRS10 is reduced in human obesity and contributes to enhanced lipogenesis. Cell Met. (2011) 14(2): 208-18. PMID:21803291 PMCID: PMC3167228.
- Huang H, Gao Q, Penga X, Choia S-Y, Sarmaa K, Ren H, Morris AJ, Frohman MA. piRNA-associated germline nuage formation and spermatogenesis require MitoPLD pro-fusogenic mitochondrial-surface lipid signaling. Dev Cell. (2011) 20(3):376-87. PMID:21397848 PMCID:PMC3061402.
- Ren H, Federico L, Huang H, Sunkara M, Drennan T, Frohman MA, Smyth SS, Morris AJ. A Phosphatidic acid binding/nuclear localization motif determines lipin1 function in lipid metabolism and adipogenesis. Mol Biol Cell. (2010) 18:3171-3181. PMID:20660155 PMCID: PMC2938383.
- Liu GH, Qu J, Carmack AE, Kim HB, Chen C, Ren H, Morris AJ, Finck BN, Harris TE. Lipin proteins form homo- and hetero-oligomers. Biochem J. (2010) 432(1):65-76. PMID:20735359 PMCID:PMC3117669.
- Miriyala S, Subramanian T, Panchatcharam M, Ren H, Sunkara M. Drenan T, Smyth SS, Spielmann HP and Morris, A.J. Functional characterization of the atypical integral membrane lipid phosphatase PDP1/PPAPDC2 identifies a pathway for interconversion of isoprenols and isoprenoid phosphates in mammalian cells. J. Biol. Chem (2010) 285:13918-29. PMID: 20110354 PMCID:PMC2859554.
- Su W, Yeku O, Olepu S, Genna A, Park JS, Ren H, Du G, Gelb M, Morris A, Frohman MA. 5-Fluoro-2-indolyl des-chlorohalopemide (FIPI), a phospholipase D pharmacological inhibitor that alters cell spreading and inhibits chemotaxis. Mol Pharmacol.( 2009) 75(3):437-46. PMID:19064628 PMCID: PMC2684902.
- Ren H, Ghebremeskel K, Okpala I, Ugochukwu CC, Crawford A, Ibegbulam O. Patients with Sickle Cell Disease have Reduced Blood Antioxidant Protection. Int J Vitam Nutr Res. (2008) 78(3):139-47. PMID:19003736.
- Ren H, Ghebremeskel K, Okpala I, Ugochukwu CC, Crawford, Ibegbulam O. Abnormality of erythrocyte membrane n-3 long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids in sickle cell hemoglobin (HbSC) disease is not as remarkable as in sickle cell anaemia (HbSS). Prostaglandins Leuko Essent Fatty Acids, 74: 1-6, 2006. PMID:16314081.
- Ren H, Magulike NO, Ghebremeskel K, Crawford M (2006) Primary open angle glaucoma patients have reduced levels of blood docosahexaenoic and eicosapentaenoic acids. Prostaglandins Leuko Essent Fatty Acids 74(3): 157-163, 2006. PMID:16410047.
- Ren H, Ibegbulam O, Okpala I, Ghebremeskel K, Ugochukwu CC, Crawford M. Steady state haemoglobin level in sickle cell anaemia increases with an increase in erythrocyte membrane n-3 fatty acids. Prostaglandins Leuko Essent Fatty Acids 72(6): 415-421, 2005. PMID:15876528.
- Ren H, Okpala I, Ghebremeskel K, Ugochukwu CC, Ibegbulam O, Crawford M. Blood mononuclear cells and platelets have abnormal fatty acid composition in homozygous sickle cell disease. Ann Hematol 84(9): 578-583, 2005. PMID:15809883.
Awards/Recognition
2020, Wright State University Women in Science Giving Circle Faculty Awards
- 2012–2016, American Heart Association Scientist Development Grant (National Center), Identification Number: 12SDG12050697.
- 2013–2015, Junior Investigator of COBRE grant (PI, L. Cassis), NIH COBRE P20 GM103527.
- 2012–2013, Pilot grant award from Center of Research in Obesity and Cardiovascular Disease (COCVD) from NIH COBRE P20 GM103527.
- 2011–2012, American Heart Association Beginning Grant-In-Aid, Great Rivers Affiliate. AHA Identification Number: 11BGIA7710059.
- 2011– 2012, Pilot grant award from Center of Research in Obesity and Disease (COCVD) from NIH COBRE P20 GM103527.
- 2008–2011, American Heart Association Post Doctoral Fellowship, Great Rivers Affiliate. AHA Identification Number: 0825607D and 10POST4210002 (one-year renewal).
- 2009, Second Prize of the Best Postdoctoral Poster Presentation, the Third Annual Postdoctoral Poster Presentation (University of Kentucky).
- 2004–2007, Thomas H. Smouse Memorial Fellowship Awards, the AOCS Foundation.
- 2004–2005, Scholarship for Stroke Research, AOCS Natural Health Research Institute.
- 2002–2007, Mother and Child Foundation Scholarship, The Mother and Child Foundation.