Verena Link, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Davis Campus
vlink2@health.ucdavis.edu
The rising incidence of chronic inflammatory diseases, including psoriasis and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), has been strongly associated with diet and the gut microbiome. However, the underlying immune mechanisms remain poorly understood.
Our laboratory studies how nutrition, the microbiome, and genetic diversity interact with the immune system in health and disease.
To address these questions, we develop and apply cutting‑edge wet‑lab and computational approaches, focusing on chronic inflammatory diseases such as psoriasis and IBD in both mouse models and human patients.
Selected Publications:
Link VM, Subramanian P, Cheung F, Han KL, Stacy A, Chi L, Sellers BA, Koroleva G, Courville AB, Mistry S, Burns A, Apps R, Hall KD, Belkaid Y. Differential peripheral immune signatures elicited by vegan versus ketogenic diets in humans. Nat Med. 2024 Feb;30(2):560-572. doi: 10.1038/s41591-023-02761-2. Epub 2024 Jan 30. PubMed PMID: 38291301; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC10878979.
Hurabielle C, Link VM, Bouladoux N, Han SJ, Merrill ED, Lightfoot YL, Seto N, Bleck CKE, Smelkinson M, Harrison OJ, Linehan JL, Tamoutounour S, Lionakis MS, Kaplan MJ, Nakajima S, Belkaid Y. Immunity to commensal skin fungi promotes psoriasiform skin inflammation. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2020 Jul 14;117(28):16465-16474. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2003022117. Epub 2020 Jun 29. PubMed PMID: 32601220; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC7368261.
Link VM, Romanoski CE, Metzler D, Glass CK. MMARGE: Motif Mutation Analysis for Regulatory Genomic Elements. Nucleic Acids Res. 2018 Aug 21;46(14):7006-7021. doi: 10.1093/nar/gky491. PubMed PMID: 29893919; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC6101580.
Link VM, Duttke SH, Chun HB, Holtman IR, Westin E, Hoeksema MA, Abe Y, Skola D, Romanoski CE, Tao J, Fonseca GJ, Troutman TD, Spann NJ, Strid T, Sakai M, Yu M, Hu R, Fang R, Metzler D, Ren B, Glass CK. Analysis of Genetically Diverse Macrophages Reveals Local and Domain-wide Mechanisms that Control Transcription Factor Binding and Function. Cell. 2018 Jun 14;173(7):1796-1809.e17. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2018.04.018. Epub 2018 May 17. PubMed PMID: 29779944; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC6003872.
Gosselin D, Link VM, Romanoski CE, Fonseca GJ, Eichenfield DZ, Spann NJ, Stender JD, Chun HB, Garner H, Geissmann F, Glass CK. Environment drives selection and function of enhancers controlling tissue-specific macrophage identities. Cell. 2014 Dec 4;159(6):1327-40. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2014.11.023. PubMed PMID: 25480297; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4364385.
