UMass Chan Medical SchoolMorningside Graduate School of Biomedical SciencesDepartment of Microbiology
Irazoqui Lab

Laboratory of Comparative Immunology

How animals sense infection and fight back

We study the host side of infection. Our questions are simple to ask and hard to answer: how do cells know they are under attack, which genes do they switch on, and how does the lysosome, the part of the cell that breaks down waste, help them survive?

C. elegans Macrophages Intestinal epithelial cells
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Fluorescence microscope image of human cells with lysosomes in red, a scaffold protein in green, and nuclei in blue
HeLa cells stained for the lysosome protein LAMP1 (red), vimentin (green), and DNA (blue). Image: GerryShaw, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

About the lab

A master switch for host defense

Our lab found that TFEB, a protein best known for building lysosomes, also switches on defense genes when an animal meets a harmful microbe.

We first saw this in the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans, where the TFEB protein is called HLH-30. We then found the same switch at work in mouse immune cells. Today we follow TFEB from worms to macrophages and to the cells that line the gut, to learn how infection, the nervous system, and the gut's own microbes shape the body's defenses.

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Many small roundworms crawling on the surface of a culture plate
C. elegans on a culture plate. Image: ZEISS Microscopy, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.

What we study

Our research at a glance

Watch Javier describe our work in a short video from UMass Chan: Javier Irazoqui researches communication between the gut and the nervous system (YouTube, 2 minutes, 2017).

Six microscope images of whole worms; in infected wild-type worms the gut glows bright green

TFEB, a switch for defense

How one protein turns on the genes an animal needs to survive infection.

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Colorized electron micrograph of a green white blood cell engulfing round purple bacteria

Immune cells on alert

The chain of signals that flips the TFEB switch when immune cells swallow bacteria.

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Microscope image of transparent roundworms with glowing green nerve cells

Nerves and gut defense

How the nervous system helps the gut fight infection, and how infection harms nerves.

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Colorized electron micrograph of clusters of round yellow bacteria on a red human immune cell

Friend or foe

Why some gut microbes turn harmful when the host's defenses fail.

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Pink and purple stained section of the small intestine showing finger-like villi

Protecting the gut lining

What TFEB does in the cells that line the intestine, from mice to human cells.

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Close-up fluorescence image of human cells with many small red dots, the lysosomes, clustered around blue nuclei and green fibers

What comes next

Lysosomes, peroxisomes, and how macrophages eat microbes tagged by complement.

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Recent papers

New from the lab

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Our mission

Our mission

“To increase knowledge of host-microbe interactions with the goal of improving the human condition.”

Research

Increase knowledge of host-microbe interactions, with the goal of improving the human condition.

Education

Foster independent and original thinking in learners of all backgrounds and conditions.

Society

Promote public awareness of scientific issues.

Gloved hands using a pipette to add liquid to a multiwell culture plate
Cell culture at the bench. Image: National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, NIH, Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

Join us

Grow as a scientist with us

We believe everyone can grow and improve, and that mistakes are how we learn. We welcome curious graduate students, postdocs, and undergraduates who want to study infection and immunity.

Training and openings