Investigations

Macrophages play an important role in maintaining liver homeostasis and regeneration. Here we investigate how different macrophage populations of the liver differ in terms of their activation state and which other liver cell populations may play a role in regulating the same.

Upon stimulation of cells with transforming growth factorb(TGF-b),Smad proteins form trimeric complexes and activate a broad spectrum of target genes. It remains unresolved which of the possible Smad complexes are formed in cellular contexts and how these contribute to gene expression. Combining quantitative mass spectrometry with a computational selection strategy, we investigate Smad complexes in the mouse hepatoma cell line Hepa1-6.