Hi! I am a 3rd year cell biology student taking an upper division writing class focusing on biology. Our final project is a review paper on a topic of our choosing. I am focusing on the link between microplastics and pulmonary fibrosis.
The actual, specific subject, is something like "the mechanism polystyrene nano plastics induce pulmonary fibrosis through ferroptosis." At this point I have read 9 review papers, about the NF-kappaB pathway, ferroptosis, the link between inflammation and pulmonary fibrosis, ect. Still, I feel like whenever I read a primary paper it mentions something I have never heard of. I usually recognize the pathway they are mentioning, but they often mention a specific aspect I have not read about.
For example this paper: https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S2590006425013109 focuses on the YY1 transcription factor, and its effect on iron storage.
I recognize what it is doing, how suppressing FTL (which promotes iron storage) would lead to a lack of iron being stored that means overall for the cell. But my problem is I don't know how to tie this information to other pathways, I have found out YY1 is downstream of NF-kappaB, but... https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3829205/ I could only find that out through a different paper on a totally different cell.
How would you learn that NF-kappaB is upstream of YY1? Are there resources for learning about these pathways outside of review papers? Any good textbook recommendations, websites, ect?
I recognize that I am a bit out of my depth here, but I thoroughly enjoy this topic. However, I am open to the opinion that it is simply not doable for me at this point.