Lonnie P Lybarger
- Associate Professor, Cellular and Molecular Medicine
- Associate Professor, BIO5 Institute
- Associate Professor, Immunobiology
- Member of the Graduate Faculty
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Awards
- Vernon and Virginia Furrow Award for Excellence in Graduate Student Education
- College of Medicine, Fall 2018
- College of Medicine, Fall 2015
- Dean's List for Excellence in Teaching in the medical school
- Fall 2017
Interests
No activities entered.
Courses
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Scholarly Contributions
Journals/Publications
- Jamwal, D. R., Laubitz, D., Harrison, C. A., Figliuolo da Paz, V., Cox, C. M., Wong, R., Midura-Kiela, M., Gurney, M. A., Besselsen, D. G., Setty, P., Lybarger, L. P., Bhattacharya, D., Wilson, J. M., Ghishan, F. K., & Kiela, P. R. (2020). Intestinal Epithelial MHCII Expression Modulates the Course of Autoimmune and Infectious Colitis. Gastroenterology.
- Jamwal, D. R., Laubitz, D., Harrison, C. A., Figliuolo da Paz, V., Cox, C. M., Wong, R., Midura-Kiela, M., Gurney, M. A., Besselsen, D. G., Setty, P., Lybarger, L., Bhattacharya, D., Wilson, J. M., Ghishan, F. K., & Kiela, P. R. (2020). Intestinal Epithelial Expression of MHCII Determines Severity of Chemical, T-Cell-Induced, and Infectious Colitis in Mice. Gastroenterology, 159(4), 1342-1356.e6.More infoIntestinal epithelial cells (IECs) provide a barrier that separates the mucosal immune system from the luminal microbiota. IECs constitutively express low levels of major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class II proteins, which are upregulated upon exposure to interferon gamma. We investigated the effects of deleting MHCII proteins specifically in mice with infectious, dextran sodium sulfate (DSS)-, and T-cell-induced colitis.
- Bhagwandin, C., Ashbeck, E. L., Whalen, M., Bandola-Simon, J., Roche, P. A., Szajman, A., Truong, S. M., Wertheim, B. C., Klimentidis, Y. C., Ishido, S., Renquist, B. J., & Lybarger, L. (2018). The E3 ubiquitin ligase MARCH1 regulates glucose-tolerance and lipid storage in a sex-specific manner. PloS one, 13(10), e0204898.More infoType 2 diabetes is typified by insulin-resistance in adipose tissue, skeletal muscle, and liver, leading to chronic hyperglycemia. Additionally, obesity and type 2 diabetes are characterized by chronic low-grade inflammation. Membrane-associated RING-CH-1 (MARCH1) is an E3 ubiquitin ligase best known for suppression of antigen presentation by dendritic and B cells. MARCH1 was recently found to negatively regulate the cell surface levels of the insulin receptor via ubiquitination. This, in turn, impaired insulin sensitivity in mouse models. Here, we report that MARCH1-deficient (knockout; KO) female mice exhibit excessive weight gain and excessive visceral adiposity when reared on standard chow diet, without increased inflammatory cell infiltration of adipose tissue. By contrast, male MARCH1 KO mice had similar weight gain and visceral adiposity to wildtype (WT) male mice. MARCH1 KO mice of both sexes were more glucose tolerant than WT mice. The levels of insulin receptor were generally higher in insulin-responsive tissues (especially the liver) from female MARCH1 KO mice compared to males, with the potential to account in part for the differences between male and female MARCH1 KO mice. We also explored a potential role for MARCH1 in human type 2 diabetes risk through genetic association testing in publicly-available datasets, and found evidence suggestive of association. Collectively, our data indicate an additional link between immune function and diabetes, specifically implicating MARCH1 as a regulator of lipid metabolism and glucose tolerance, whose function is modified by sex-specific factors.
- Bhagwandin, C., Ashbeck, E. L., Whalen, M., Szajman, A., Truong, S. M., Wertheim, B. C., Klimentidis, Y. C., Ishido, S., Renquist, B. J., & Lybarger, L. P. (2018). The E3 ubiquitin ligase MARCH1 regulates glucose-tolerance and lipid storage in a sex-specific manner. PlosOne.
- Lybarger, L. P., Renquist, B. J., Ishido, S., Klimentidis, Y. C., Wertheim, B. C., Truong, S. M., Szajman, A., Whalen, M., Ashbeck, E. L., & Bhagwandin, C. (2018). The E3 ubiquitin ligase MARCH1 regulates glucose-tolerance and lipid storage in a sex-specific manner. PlosOne.
- Lybarger, L., Corcoran, K., Jabbour, M., Bhagwandin, C., Deymier, M. J., Theisen, D. L., & Lybarger, L. P. (2011). Ubiquitin-mediated regulation of CD86 protein expression by the ubiquitin ligase membrane-associated RING-CH-1 (MARCH1). The Journal of biological chemistry, 286(43).More infoThe activation of naïve T cells requires antigen presentation by dendritic cells (DCs), and the process of antigen presentation is regulated over the course of DC maturation. One key aspect of this regulation is the cell surface up-regulation upon DC maturation of peptide·MHC-II complexes and the costimulatory molecule CD86. It is now clear that these critical induction events involve changes in ubiquitin-dependent trafficking of MHC-II and CD86 by the E3 ligase membrane-associated RING-CH-1 (MARCH1). Although ubiquitin-dependent trafficking of MHC-II has been well characterized, much less is known regarding the post-transcriptional regulation of CD86 expression. Here, we examined the physical and functional interaction between CD86 and MARCH1. We observed that CD86 is rapidly endocytosed in the presence of MARCH1 followed by lysosome-dependent degradation. Furthermore, we found that the association between CD86 and MARCH1 was conferred primarily by the transmembrane domains of the respective proteins. In contrast to MHC-II, which has a single, conserved ubiquitin acceptor site in the cytosolic domain, we found that multiple lysine residues in the cytosolic tail of CD86 could support ubiquitination consistent with the relative lack of sequence conservation across species within the CD86 cytosolic domain. These findings suggest that MARCH1 recruits multiple substrates via transmembrane domain-mediated interactions to permit substrate ubiquitination in the face of diverse cytosolic domain sequences.
- Lybarger, L., Ordaz, M. L., Larmonier, N., & Lybarger, L. P. (2010). DC-expressed MHC class I single-chain trimer-based vaccines prime cytotoxic T lymphocytes against exogenous but not endogenous antigens. Cellular immunology, 262(2).More infoThe poor immunogenicity of many tumors can be partly explained by the inefficiency of the MHC class I peptide presentation pathway. MHC-I-based single-chain trimers (SCT) represent a new class of molecules with the potential to overcome this limitation. We here evaluated the ability of SCT presenting a melanoma antigen peptide (TRP-2) to prime cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) responses in mice when given as DNA vaccines via Gene Gun or when expressed by dendritic cells. The SCT was unable to induce detectable priming or significant anti-tumor activity of CTL using either vaccination strategy, whereas control SCT (with an exogenous peptide) primed strong responses. This study thus provides the first data related to the use of SCT in combination with DC and their application toward self antigens and suggest this potent technology, alone, is insufficient to overcome self tolerance.
- Lybarger, L., Corcoran, K., Wang, X., & Lybarger, L. P. (2009). Adapter-mediated substrate selection for endoplasmic reticulum-associated degradation. The Journal of biological chemistry, 284(26).More infoDuring endoplasmic reticulum (ER)-associated degradation (ERAD), a relatively small number of ubiquitin ligases (E3) must be capable of ubiquitinating an assortment of substrates diverse in both structure and location (ER lumen, membrane, and/or cytosol). Therefore, mechanisms that operate independently of primary sequence determinants must exist to ensure specificity during this process. Here we provide direct evidence for adapter-mediated substrate recruitment for a virus-encoded ERAD E3 ligase, mK3. Members of an ER membrane protein complex that normally functions during major histocompatibility complex class I biogenesis in the immune system are required for mK3 substrate selection. We demonstrate that heterologous substrates could be ubiquitinated by mK3 if they were recruited by these ER accessory molecules to the proper position relative to the ligase domain of mK3. This mechanism of substrate recruitment by adapter proteins may explain the ability of some E3 ligases, including cellular ERAD E3 ligases, to specifically target the ubiquitination of multiple substrates that are unrelated in sequence.
- Lybarger, L., Jabbour, M., Campbell, E. M., Fares, H., & Lybarger, L. P. (2009). Discrete domains of MARCH1 mediate its localization, functional interactions, and posttranscriptional control of expression. Journal of immunology (Baltimore, Md. : 1950), 183(10).More infoWithin APCs, ubiquitination regulates the trafficking of immune modulators such as MHC class II and CD86 (B7.2) molecules. MARCH1 (membrane-associated RING-CH), a newly identified ubiquitin E3 ligase expressed in APCs, ubiquitinates MHC class II, thereby reducing its surface expression. Following LPS-induced maturation of dendritic cells, MARCH1 mRNA is down-regulated and MHC class II is redistributed to the cell surface from endosomal compartments. Here, we show that MARCH1 expression is also regulated at the posttranscriptional level. In primary dendritic cell and APC cell lines of murine origin, MARCH1 had a half-life of
