NIH R01 · 2025
ABSTRACT Breathing disorders affect most individuals with obesity—and while respiratory muscle dysfunction occurs with elevated BMI, its underlying pathophysiology and potential therapeutic targeting in obesity-associated pulmonary compromise are largely uninvestigated. Mice subjected to diet-induced obesity (DIO), develop diaphragm weakness. In these animals, intra-diaphragmatic adiposity, and extracellular matrix (ECM) content quantitatively correlate with reductions in muscle contractile force. Resident mesenchymal cells called fibro-adipogenic progenitors (FAPs) are the source of all adipocytes and many ECM-depositing cells in the obese diaphragm. With DIO, diaphragm FAPs assume a…
From the public funding record at NIH RePORTER. Describes the funded project, not the reviews below.