# IFI16 is a Periodontitis Modulating Protein

> **NIH NIH K01** · UNIV OF NORTH CAROLINA CHAPEL HILL · 2022 · $138,811

## Abstract

ABSTRACT
This is a Mentored Career Development Award to Promote Diversity in the Dental, Oral and Craniofacial
Research Workforce (K01) application for Julie Marchesan, a periodontist/scientist. The candidate is
conducting mentored research investigating the role of interferon gamma inducible protein (IFI16) as a
modulator of periodontal tissue destruction via the absent in melanoma 2 (AIM2) inflammasome and
inflammatory cytokine/chemokine expression. This career development award will allow Dr. Marchesan to:
a) obtain training in mechanistic approaches in order to increase the quality of her translational research; b)
to develop an independent research career allowing her to collaborate with clinical and basic science
researchers; and c) to increase the representation of Latino women in academia and in independently funded
in oral health research. A multidisciplinary team of experts has agreed to support Julie during this career
development award. The co-mentors brings multidisciplinary expertise and are Dr. Jim Beck (co-mentor,
translational research in periodontology) and Dr. Jenny Ting (co-mentor, innate immunity and host response).
Periodontal disease (PD) is a multifactorial disease that has microorganisms and a susceptible host as key
players. While treatment of PD is successful in the majority of cases, it is well known that up to 30% of
patients with moderate chronic periodontitis respond poorly to treatment. IFI16 was recently identified as a
potential protein involved in PD pathogenesis. Depending upon the type of stimuli and disease, IFI16 can
modulate inflammation as an anti-inflammatory protein. The finding that absence of this protein in Ifi204-/-
mice significantly increases the severity of periodontal bone loss strengthens the evidence that this protein
modulates inflammation. Therefore, we hypothesize that IFI16 functions to attenuate the host response that
drives periodontitis. The proposed application will utilize mechanistic approaches (overexpression, silencing,
knockout animals, experimental models of PD, bone marrow-transplantation, protein inhibition and human
tissue samples induced for gingivitis) to study the role of IFI16 as a modulator of the periodontal host
response. This project will (SA1) evaluate IFI16 as a modulator of the periodontal host response in vitro
assays and quantifying IFI16/AIM2 expression in tissues; we propose to (SA2) explore IFI16 hindering
inflammatory bone destruction using knockout animals for Ifi204 and Aim2 and (SA3) we will identify the cells
predominantly helping to drive the inflammatory response via IFI16 using bone marrow transfer experiments.
The long-term goal of this research is to increase the understanding of the modulation of inflammation driving
the development of personalized treatments targeting host responses.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10572886
- **Project number:** 3K01DE027087-05S1
- **Recipient organization:** UNIV OF NORTH CAROLINA CHAPEL HILL
- **Principal Investigator:** Julie Teresa Marchesan
- **Activity code:** K01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $138,811
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2022-08-01 → 2023-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10572886

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10572886, IFI16 is a Periodontitis Modulating Protein (3K01DE027087-05S1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10572886. Licensed CC0.

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