Lian Zhang, MD & PhD, is a clinical talent of Southern Medical University Dermatology Hospital, a Youth Talent in Guangzhou, a committee member of the Skin Oncology Group of the Dermatology and Venereology Branch of the Chinese Medical Association, and a visiting scholar at the Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of Southern California. His research focuses on the clinical translational studies of the epigenetics of keloids and skin tumors. He has been awarded Seven research grants, including the Natural Science Foundation of China, the Guangzhou Youth Talent Program, and the China Postdoctoral Fund, and has published over 20 academic papers, including in Hepatology, Cancer Letters, Cell Death & Disease, Journal of Autoimmunity, among others, with over 740 citations. He is a co-author of an English monograph on autoimmune diseases. Additionally, he serves as a long-term reviewer for international journals such as JEADV and Frontiers in Immunology.
Abstract submitted for the 5th International Keloid Symposium
Keloids are benign skin tumors, but their molecular mechanisms of pathogenesis remain unclear. Through multi-omics analyses, we identified that keloid pathogenesis involves transcriptional dysregulation driven by DNA methylation reprogramming. Compared to normal scars, keloid tissues exhibit a global DNA hypermethylation pattern, which is similarly observed in keloid fibroblasts. RNA-seq analysis revealed significant upregulation of bone and cartilage-related signaling pathways, while hormone-related pathways were markedly downregulated in keloid samples. Furthermore, inhibition of aberrant DNA hypermethylation using a DNA methyltransferase inhibitor suppressed the growth of keloid fibroblasts. These findings indicate that DNA methylation plays a crucial role in keloid pathogenesis, and targeting the regulation of bone, cartilage, and hormone-related signaling pathways may provide novel therapeutic strategies for keloid treatment.
