About the Lab
The Yallampalli Lab conducts basic sciences and perinatology research. Our research is focused in three main areas.
Fetal Programming of Adult Health Hypertension and Diabetes
Fetal Programming of adult health and diseases, with special emphasis on the role of sex-steroid hormones on the regulation of mechanisms underlying hypertension and diabetes. We use low-protein diet model to study its effects during pregnancy and assess the consequences in the adult offspring. Hypertension is more severe, and the onset is earlier in males compared to females and in both sexes, testosterone levels are elevated. An antiandrogen can reverse the hypertension in females. Majority of the hypertensive symptoms are due to endothelial cell dysfunction and increased angiotensin responsiveness. In addition, we are currently investigating what are the maternal factors that may be responsible for programming in the offspring. Although several agents may be involved, we found testosterone and angiotensin II are elevated. The programming of diabetes in the progeny also occurs in low-protein diet fed mothers. The onset and severity of the diabetes is also sex dependent with early onset and more severe in females compared to males.
Preeclampsia
Mechanisms underlying the pathophysiology of Preeclampsia. Our focus is to study the involvement of complement proteins and their activation in causing the elevations in antiangiogenic molecules such as s-FLT-1 and sEndoglin that could have adverse placental and maternal vascular effects leading to preeclampsia. In addition, we also study a variety of mechanisms for vascular dysfunctions in preeclampsia using maternal omental arteries from normal and preeclamptic patients such as CGRP peptides and their analogues.
Gestational Diabetes
The overall goal is to understand the role of calcitonin gene-related peptide family (CGRP, adrenomedullin and Adrenomedullin-2) in lipid dysfunction in diabetic pregnancy. We are studying the involvement of these peptides and their mechanisms of action in increased lipolysis, decreased adipogenesis associated with the diabetes as well as the effects of these peptides on insulin secretion from pancreas.
