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Bio

After completing her PhD on the modulation of inflammation in the airway epithelium in Cystic Fibrosis (CF), she studied the impact of hormones on ion and fluid transport in the CF airways in Prof. Brian Harvey’s lab in Dublin. She came back to France in 2013 where she joined a team in Pasteur Institute (D2i, Prof. Jean-Michel Sallenave’s group), which later moved to Bichat hospital, to investigate, in vitro and in vivo, the role of a bacterial elastase on the airway homeostasis, particularly, the epithelial repair process, ion transport and inflammatory response. She then moved to Dr Mike Gray’s lab in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 2015 to explore alternative approaches to activate chloride and bicarbonate secretion in the CF airways. Particularly, she developed an in vitro method to study the airway luminal pH and investigated the role of multiple ion channels and transporters in airway pH homeostasis. Since she was recruited at INRA in 2019, she focuses her research on the pulmonary microbiota and the gut-lung axis and has established in vitro models of fully differenciated primary human nasal and bronchial epithelial cells to explore the interactions between the microbiota and the host’s lungs.

Research Activities

Until 2010, the healthy lung was considered sterile. We now know that it contains between 10⁴ and 10⁵ bacteria per gram of tissue and that the composition of this microbiota may be associated with pathologies. Recent studies also show that alterations of the intestinal microbiota can have consequences at the pulmonary level. In this context, the main axes of her research projects focus on:
(i)   the association between composition of the pulmonary microbiota and pulmonary pathologies (ANR SevAsthma-Children);
(ii) the characterization of the interactions between bacteria of the microbiota and the epithelium of the respiratory tract thanks to the establishment of in vitro models of differentiated epithelia (samples obtained by SevAsthma);
(iii) the impact of undernutrition (SFNCM funding), alterations in the intestinal microbiota associated with prematurity and exposure, via food, to environmental contaminants on respiratory health using animal models.

Selected publications

Saint-Criq V., Guequén A., Philp A.R., Villanueva S., Apablaza T., Fernández-Moncada I., Mansilla A., Delpiano L., Ruminot I., Carrasco C., Gray M.A., Flores C.A. (2022-05-30). Inhibition of the sodium-dependent HCO3- transporter SLC4A4, produces a cystic fibrosis-like airway disease phenotype. Elife. https://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.75871, https://hal.inrae.fr/hal-03778006 

Chottin C., Marquant Q., Saint-Criq V., Thomas M. R., Riffault S., Descamps D. (2022). La muqueuse pulmonaire en période périnatale : un monde à comprendre pour lutter contre la sensibilité du jeune à la bronchiolite. Revue des Maladies Respiratoires, 39 (2), 104-107, https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rmr.2022.01.012, https://hal.inrae.fr/hal-03625844

Mathieu E., Marquant Q., Descamps D., Riffault S., Saint-Criq V., Thomas M. (2021-11). Le poumon est sensible aux effets locaux et à distance des microbiotes. Nutrition Clinique et Métabolisme, 35 (4), 242-252, https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.nupar.2021.04.002, https://hal.inrae.fr/hal-03477849 

Saint-Criq V., Wang Y., Delpiano L., Lin J., Sheppard D., Gray M. (2021-05-18). Extracellular phosphate enhances the function of F508del-CFTR rescued by CFTR correctors. Journal of Cystic Fibrosis, 20 (5), 843-850, https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jcf.2021.04.013, https://hal.inrae.fr/hal-03358608

Saint-Criq V., Lugo-Villarino G., Thomas M. (2021). Dysbiosis, malnutrition and enhanced gut-lung axis contribute to age-related respiratory diseases. Ageing Research Reviews - ARR, 66, 101235, https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.arr.2020.101235, https://hal.inrae.fr/hal-03129383 

Saint-Criq V., Delpiano L., Casement J., Onuora J., Lin J., Gray M. (2020). Choice of Differentiation media significantly impacts cell lineage and response to CFTR modulators in fully differentiated primary cultures of cystic fibrosis human airway epithelial cells. Cells, 9 (9), 2137, https://dx.doi.org/10.3390/cells9092137, https://hal.inrae.fr/hal-02977349

Mathieu E., Macpherson C., Belvis J., Mathieu O., Robert V., Saint-Criq V., Langella P., Tompkins T., Thomas M. (2020). Oral Primo-Colonizing Bacteria Modulate Inflammation and Gene Expression in Bronchial Epithelial Cells. Microorganisms, 8 (8), 1094, https://dx.doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms8081094, https://hal.inrae.fr/hal-02977352

Saint-Criq V., Haq I. J., Gardner A. I., Garnett J. P., Ward C., Brodlie M., Gray M. A. (2019). Real-time, semi-automated fluorescent measurement of the airway surface liquid pH of primary human airway epithelial cells. Journal of visualized experiments : JoVE, (148), https://dx.doi.org/10.3791/59815, https://hal.inrae.fr/hal-02619086

Delpiano L., Thomas J., Yates A., Rice S., Gray M., Saint-Criq V. (2018-12-11). Esomeprazole Increases Airway Surface Liquid pH in Primary Cystic Fibrosis Epithelial Cells. Frontiers in Pharmacology, 9, https://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fphar.2018.01462, https://hal.inrae.fr/hal-02977362

Bastaert F., Kheir S., Saint-Criq V., Villeret B., Dang P.-C., El-Benna J., Sirard J.-C., Voulhoux R., Sallenave J.-M. (2018-07-23). Pseudomonas aeruginosa LasB Subverts Alveolar Macrophage Activity by Interfering With Bacterial Killing Through Downregulation of Innate Immune Defense, Reactive Oxygen Species Generation, and Complement Activation. Frontiers in Immunology, 9, 1675, https://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fimmu.2018.01675, https://hal.inrae.fr/inserm-02078851

Martin S. L., Saint-Criq V., Hwang T.-C., Csanády L. (2018). Ion channels as targets to treat cystic fibrosis lung disease. Journal of Cystic Fibrosis, 17 (2), S22-S27, https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jcf.2017.10.006, https://hal.inrae.fr/hal-02385564 

Saint-Criq V., Villeret B., Bastaert F., Kheir S., Hatton A., Cazes A., Xing Z., Sermet-Gaudelus I., Garcia-Verdugo I., Edelman A., Sallenave J.-M. (2018). Pseudomonas aeruginosa LasB protease impairs innate immunity in mice and humans by targeting a lung epithelial cystic fibrosis transmembrane regulator–IL-6–antimicrobial–repair pathway. Thorax, 73 (1), 49-61, https://dx.doi.org/10.1136/thoraxjnl-2017-210298, https://hal.inrae.fr/hal-02392171

Saint-Criq V, Gray MA Role of CFTR in epithelial physiology. Cell Mol Life Sci. 2017 Jan;74(1):93-115. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00018-016-2391-y, https://hal.inrae.fr/hal-02628029

ORCID: 0000-0003-0042-3735
IdHAL: vinciane-saint-criq
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=P9daAckAAAAJ&hl=en 
ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Vinciane-Saint-Criq