Education and Training

M.D.: Hunan Medical University, Medicine and Pharmacology
Postdoctoral Fellowship: Baylor College of Medicine, Cardiology

Research Interests

The long-term goal of my research interest is to explore and to develop novel strategies for myocardial protection in patients at risk. Over the past three decades, I have acquired enormous experience with animal models of myocardial infarction and heart failure and with the assessment of cardiac function using the state-of-art methods including magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), echocardiography, and invasive pressure-volume analysis as well as studies of cardiac structure using pathology and immunohistochemical techniques. My expertise in in vivo injury and functional analysis provides a unique opportunity to work on projects in assessment of the efficacy of cardioprotective therapies. As PI or co-Investigator on several University-, AHA- and NIH-funded grants, I have laid the groundwork for developing my research direction in elucidating the mechanisms of myocardial injury and in performing translational research on cardioprotective therapeutic approaches.

My earlier research was focused on studying the mechanisms of the phenomenon of ischemic preconditioning whereby brief episodes of ischemia render the myocardium resistant to subsequent ischemic/reperfused injury via endogenous adaptive mechanisms. The studies that we have done include: (1) demonstrating that the late phase of ischemic preconditioning against myocardial stunning and infarction exists in all animal models tested including open chest mice, conscious rats, conscious rabbits, and conscious pigs; (2) elucidating that the mechanisms underlying the early phase of ischemic preconditioning involve in activating a series of kinase signaling cascades and that cardioprotection of the late phase of ischemic preconditioning is afforded by upregulation of cardioprotective proteins such as inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS), hemooxygenase-1 (HO-1), and cooxygenase-2 (COX-2) ; and (3) finding that the phenomenon of ischemic preconditioning is abrogated in animals under pathological conditions such as hypercholesterolemia and atherosclerosis.  

In recent years, my laboratory focuses on preclinical translational research using rat, rabbit, and pig models of cardiomyopathy to evaluate the efficacy of cardioprotective therapies. I have conducted numerous translational studies of cardioprotective therapies including novel pharmacological agents, adult stem cells, and therapeutic genes in postinfarction LV remodeling and heart failure. In the studies using adult stem cells, I have demonstrated that cardiac functional benefits can be attained in rats and pigs after receiving cell therapy via various routes of delivery including intracoronary infusion, direct intramyocardial injection, echo-guided intraventricular cavity infusion, and intravenous injection. In the studies of novel agents, I found that intracoronary administration of fusogenic nanoliposomes during coronary artery occlusion effectively reduced myocardial infarct size and attenuated the postinfarction myocardial no-reflow phenomenon. I believe these studies should pave the way to future success of developing novel cardiac therapeutic approaches.

Featured Publications

Full list of publications  (.pdf)

• Abouleisa RRE, Tang XL, Ou Q, Salama AM, Woolard A, Hammouri D, Abdelhafez H, Cayton S, Abdulwali SK, Arai M, Sithu ID, Conklin DJ, Bolli R, Mohamed TMA. Gene therapy encoding cell cycle factors to treat chronic ischemic heart failure in rats. Cardiovasc Res. 2024 Mar 13;120(2):152-163. doi: 10.1093/cvr/cvae002. PMID: 38175760; PMCID: PMC10936750.

• Tang XL, Bolli R. Repeated Intravenous Administration of Mesenchymal Stromal Cells Produces Cumulative Beneficial Effects in Chronic Ischemic Cardiomyopathy. Tex Heart Inst J. 2023 Oct 12;50(5):e238244. doi: 10.14503/THIJ-23-8244. PMID: 37840224; PMCID: PMC10658144.

• Tang XL, Nasr M, Zheng S, Zoubul T, Stephan JK, Uchida S, Singhal R, Khan A, Gumpert A, Bolli R, Wysoczynski M. Bone Marrow and Wharton's Jelly Mesenchymal Stromal Cells are Ineffective for Myocardial Repair in an Immunodeficient Rat Model of Chronic Ischemic Cardiomyopathy. Stem Cell Rev Rep. 2023 Oct;19(7):2429-2446. doi: 10.1007/s12015-023-10590-6. Epub 2023 Jul 28. PMID: 37500831; PMCID: PMC10579184.
• Salama ABM, Abouleisa RRE, Ou Q, Tang XL, Alhariry N, Hassan S, Gebreil A, Dastagir M, Abdulwali F, Bolli R, Mohamed TMA. Transient gene therapy using cell cycle factors reverses renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system activation in heart failure rat model. Mol Cell Biochem. 2023 Jun;478(6):1245-1250. doi: 10.1007/s11010-022-04590-2. Epub 2022 Oct 25. PMID: 36282351; PMCID: PMC10126184.
• Bolli R, Tang XL. New insights into cardioprotection, gained by adopting the CAESAR standards of rigor. Basic Res Cardiol. 2022 Nov 11;117(1):57. doi: 10.1007/s00395-022-00964-1. PMID: 36367590.
• Miller JM, Meki MH, Elnakib A, Ou Q, Abouleisa RRE, Tang XL, Salama ABM, Gebreil A, Lin C, Abdeltawab H, Khalifa F, Hill BG, Abi-Gerges N, Bolli R, El-Baz AS, Giridharan GA, Mohamed TMA. Biomimetic cardiac tissue culture model (CTCM) to emulate cardiac physiology and pathophysiology ex vivo. Commun Biol. 2022 Sep 9;5(1):934. doi: 10.1038/s42003-022-03919-3. PMID: 36085302; PMCID: PMC9463130.
• Bolli R, Tang XL. Clinical trials of cell therapy for heart failure: recent results warrant continued research. Curr Opin Cardiol. 2022 May 1;37(3):193-200. doi: 10.1097/HCO.0000000000000956. PMID: 35612934; PMCID: PMC9178910.
• Abouleisa RRE, Salama ABM, Ou Q, Tang XL, Solanki M, Guo Y, Nong Y, McNally L, Lorkiewicz PK, Kassem KM, Ahern BM, Choudhary K, Thomas R, Huang Y, Juhardeen HR, Siddique A, Ifthikar Z, Hammad SK, Elbaz AS, Ivey KN, Conklin DJ, Satin J, Hill BG, Srivastava D, Bolli R, Mohamed TMA. Transient Cell Cycle Induction in Cardiomyocytes to Treat Subacute Ischemic Heart Failure. Circulation. 2022 Apr 26;145(17):1339-1355. doi: 10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.121.057641. Epub 2022 Jan 21. PMID: 35061545; PMCID: PMC9038650.
• Tang XL, Wysoczynski M, Gumpert AM, Li Y, Wu WJ, Li H, Stowers H, Bolli R. Effect of intravenous cell therapy in rats with old myocardial infarction. Mol Cell Biochem. 2022 Feb;477(2):431-444. doi: 10.1007/s11010-021-04283-2. Epub 2021 Nov 16. PMID: 34783963; PMCID: PMC8896398.
• Bolli R, Tang XL. The sad plight of cell therapy for heart failure: causes and consequences. J Cardiovasc Aging. 2022;2:16. doi: 10.20517/jca.2022.02. Epub 2022 Mar 2. PMID: 35373217; PMCID: PMC8974963.