Publications by authors named "Angelo D' Alessandro"

Purpose: The development of endocrine resistance remains a significant challenge in the clinical management of estrogen receptor-positive () breast cancer. Metabolic reprogramming is a prominent component of endocrine resistance and a potential therapeutic intervention point. However, a limited understanding of which metabolic changes are conserved across the heterogeneous landscape of ER+ breast cancer or how metabolic changes factor into ER DNA binding patterns hinder our ability to target metabolic adaptation as a treatment strategy.

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Background: Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a rare but severe and life-threatening condition that primarily affects the pulmonary blood vessels and the right ventricle of the heart. The limited availability of human tissue for research ~most of which represents only end-stage disease~ has led to a reliance on preclinical animal models. However, these models often fail to capture the heterogeneity and complexity of the human condition.

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Streptococcus pneumoniae (S. pneumoniae) employs various metabolic pathways to generate nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADPH), which is essential for redox balance, fatty acid synthesis, and energy production. GAPN, a non-phosphorylating glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase, plays a role in this process by directly reducing NADP to NADPH, effectively contributing to glucose metabolism.

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Cancer cachexia (CC), a syndrome of skeletal muscle and adipose tissue wasting, reduces responsiveness to therapies and increases mortality. There are no approved treatments for CC, which may relate to discordance between pre-clinical models and human CC. To address the need for clinically relevant models, we generated tamoxifen-inducible, epithelial cell specific ( ) mice.

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Understanding how mechanical stress affects erythropoiesis is crucial to produce transfusable erythrocytes in fluid-turbulent bioreactors. We investigated the effects of shear-stress on differentiating CD49dCD235a primary human erythroblasts (EBL) at molecular, cellular, and functional level. Shear-stress, at differentiation onset, enhanced EBL maturation and induced upregulation of genes regulating cholesterol/lipids biosynthesis, causing changes in cell lipid composition.

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Background: Approximately half of all human cancers harbour mutations in the p53 gene, leading to the generation of neomorphic p53 mutant proteins. These mutants can exert gain-of-function (GOF) effects, potentially promoting tumour progression. However, the clinical significance of p53 GOF mutations, as well as the selectivity of individual variants, remains controversial and unclear.

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Background: Pathogen reduction technology (PRT)-treated apheresis platelets (APs) were returned without platelet swirl and with pH < 6.2. The platelet donor was taking prescription levothyroxine and metformin plus over-the-counter medications and supplements.

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Red blood cell (RBC) metabolism regulates hemolysis during aging in vivo and in the blood bank. However, the genetic underpinnings of RBC metabolic heterogeneity and extravascular hemolysis at population scale are incompletely understood. Based on the breeding of 8 founder strains with extreme genetic diversity, the Jackson laboratory diversity outbred population can capture the impact of genetic heterogeneity in like fashion to population-based studies.

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Article Synopsis
  • - Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficiency, affecting 500 million people, impairs red blood cell antioxidant functions, raising the risk of hemolysis during oxidative stress, particularly during exercise.
  • - A study using mice with a specific G6PD variant showed that, despite lower enzyme activity, these mice had better exercise performance and improved heart function post-exercise compared to normal mice.
  • - Analysis revealed enhanced mitochondrial function and changes in energy metabolism and protein turnover, indicating that G6PD-deficient individuals might have a metabolic advantage during exercise, challenging existing beliefs about hemolytic risks.
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Preclinical rodent models are essential research tools for improving understanding of physiological aging processes in humans. However, the translatability of findings obtained leveraging rodent models to humans is limited, likely due in part to differences in macronutrient composition of the diets. Here, we investigated the impact of a 3-month diet intervention in old male C57BL/6JN mice in which the macronutrient composition was aligned with that of a midlife/older adult in the United States, compared to a traditional rodent diet, and assessed various phenotypes that are typically altered with aging.

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Increasing global life expectancy motivates investigations of molecular mechanisms of aging and age-related diseases. This study examines age-associated changes in red blood cells (RBCs), the most numerous host cell in humans. Four cohorts, including healthy individuals and patients with sickle cell disease, were analyzed to define age-dependent changes in RBC metabolism.

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Copper (Cu) is a cofactor of cytochrome c oxidase (CuCOX), indispensable for aerobic mitochondrial respiration. This study reveals that advanced clear cell renal cell carcinomas (ccRCCs) accumulate Cu, allocating it to CuCOX. Using a range of orthogonal approaches, including metabolomics, lipidomics, isotope-labeled glucose and glutamine flux analysis, and transcriptomics across tumor samples, cell lines, xenografts, and PDX models, combined with genetic and pharmacological interventions, we explored Cu's role in ccRCC.

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Senescent neural progenitor cells have been identified in brain lesions of people with progressive multiple sclerosis (PMS). However, their role in disease pathobiology and contribution to the lesion environment remains unclear. By establishing directly induced neural stem/progenitor cell (iNSC) lines from PMS patient fibroblasts, we studied their senescent phenotype in vitro.

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Article Synopsis
  • Transfusion of packed red blood cells (RBCs) is crucial, saving millions of lives annually and ranking as the second most common hospital treatment after vaccines.
  • Research into how blood products change with age in blood banks uncovers the complex interaction of biological and environmental factors affecting blood quality and transfusion success.
  • Understanding the metabolic differences in stored RBCs could lead to tailored transfusion techniques and insights into RBC behavior under stress, aiding both medical practices and knowledge of human physiology.
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Here, we investigate the contribution of long-term hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) to trained immunity (TI) in the setting of chronic autoimmune disease. Using a mouse model of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), we show that bone marrow-derived macrophages (BMDMs) from autoimmune mice exhibit hallmark features of TI, including increased Mycobacterium avium killing and inflammatory cytokine production, which are mechanistically linked to increased glycolytic metabolism. We show that HSCs from autoimmune mice constitute a transplantable, long-term reservoir for macrophages that exhibit the functional properties of TI.

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2-Aminoethanethiol dioxygenase (ADO) is a thiol dioxygenase that sulfinylates cysteamine and amino-terminal cysteines in polypeptides. The pathophysiological roles of ADO remain largely unknown. Here, we demonstrate that ADO expression represents a vulnerability in cancer cells, as ADO depletion led to loss of proliferative capacity and survival in cancer cells and reduced xenograft growth.

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Blood cells play a fundamental role in maintaining systemic homeostasis, by responding dynamically to various physiological and environmental stimuli [...

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Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a devastating disease initiated and maintained by a rare subset of cells called leukemia stem cells (LSCs). LSCs are responsible for driving disease relapse, making the development of new therapeutic strategies to target LSCs urgently needed. The use of mass spectrometry-based metabolomics profiling has enabled the discovery of unique and targetable metabolic properties in LSCs.

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Article Synopsis
  • Refrigerated storage slows down the metabolism of donated red blood cells (RBCs), but they still age and change in structure during storage, which impacts transfusion effectiveness.
  • A specific type of aged RBC, called storage-induced microerythrocytes (SMEs), shows significant metabolic and protein changes that lead to their clearance from the bloodstream after a transfusion.
  • The study found that SMEs have reduced energy and antioxidant levels, irreversible protein damage, and decreased ability to deform, which makes them more prone to being removed from circulation compared to younger RBCs.
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Article Synopsis
  • TDO2 is expressed at higher levels than IDO1 in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC).
  • Knocking down TDO2 can trigger an increase in IDO1 as a compensatory response.
  • A new dual inhibitor targeting both TDO2 and IDO1 reduces tryptophan catabolism, inhibits anchorage-independent survival, and decreases invasive capabilities of cancer cells.
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Background: G6PD (glucose-6-phosphate-dehydrogenase) is a key enzyme in the glycolytic pathway and has been implicated in the pathogenesis of cancer and pulmonary hypertension-associated vascular remodeling. Here, we investigated the role of an X-linked mutation (N126D polymorphism), which is known to increase the risk of cardiovascular disease in individuals from sub-Saharan Africa and many others with African ancestry, in the pathogenesis of pulmonary hypertension induced by a vascular endothelial cell growth factor receptor blocker used for treating cancer.

Methods And Results: CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing was used to generate the variant (N126D; ) in rats.

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Aged hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) show reduced reconstitution potential, limiting their use in transplantation settings in the clinic. We demonstrate here that exposure of aged HSCs ex vivo to a pH of 6.9 instead of the commonly used pH of 7.

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Administration of oxygen microbubbles (OMBs) has been shown to increase oxygen and decrease carbon dioxide in systemic circulation, as well as reduce lung inflammation and promote survival in preclinical models of hypoxia caused by lung injury. However, their impact on microenvironmental oxygenation remains unexplored. Herein, we investigated the effects of intraperitoneal administration of OMBs in anesthetized rats exposed to hypoxic ventilation (FiO = 0.

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Objectives: The mitochondrial enzyme L-2-hydroxyglutarate dehydrogenase (L2HGDH) regulates the abundance of L-2-hydroxyglutarate (L-2HG), a potent signaling metabolite capable of influencing chromatin architecture, mitochondrial metabolism, and cell fate decisions. Loss of L2hgdh activity in humans induces ectopic L-2HG accumulation, resulting in neurodevelopmental defects, altered immune cell function, and enhanced growth of clear cell renal cell carcinomas. To better understand the molecular mechanisms that underlie these disease pathologies, we used the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster to investigate the endogenous functions of L2hgdh.

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