In our latest papers, we have participated in a multi-disciplinary collaboration investigating how type-1 innate lymphoid cells (ILC1) drive gut epithelial and matrix remodelling through TGFβ1 and MMP9, which has implications for patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). We used coarse-grain molecular dynamics simulations to gain an understanding of the cross-linking and the resultant structural properties of hydrogels made with different polymeric building blocks. In doing so, we informed the design of the hydrogels that were used in Eileen Gentleman’s lab for investigating ILC1 in a controlled environment. For nice summaries of the paper as a whole, please have a look at the twitter threads that have been published by Eileen (link) and her PhD student, Geraldine Jowett (link). Also King’s has written a nice article about the collaboration and resulting paper (link).
Full reference: “ILC1 drive intestinal epithelial and matrix remodelling“, Geraldine M. Jowett, Michael D. A. Norman, Tracy T. L. Yu, Patricia Rosell Arévalo, Dominique Hoogland, Suzette T. Lust, Emily Read, Eva Hamrud, Nick J. Walters, Umar Niazi, Matthew Wai Heng Chung, Daniele Marciano, Omer S. Omer, Tomasz Zabinski, Davide Danovi, Graham M. Lord, Jöns Hilborn, Nicholas D. Evans, Cécile A. Dreiss, Laurent Bozec, Oommen P. Oommen, Christian D. Lorenz, Ricardo M. P. da Silva, Joana F. Neves & Eileen Gentleman, Nature Materials (2020) doi: 10.1038/s41563-020-0783-8.