Publications by authors named "Franchin C"

Cyclic poly(2-methyl-2-oxazine) (-PMOZI) brush shells on Au nanoparticles (NPs) exhibit enhanced stealth properties toward serum and different cell lines compared to their linear PMOZI (-PMOZI) counterparts. While selectively recruiting immunoglobulins, -PMOZI shells reduce overall human serum (HS) protein binding and alter the processing of complement factor 3 (C3) compared to chemically identical linear shells. Polymer cyclization significantly decreases NP uptake by nonphagocytic cells and macrophages in both complement-deficient fetal bovine serum (FBS) and complement-expressing HS, indicating ineffective functional opsonization.

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Inflammatory bowels diseases (IBD) are high risk conditions for colorectal cancer (CRC). The discovery of IBD and CRC noninvasive protein/peptide biomarkers using saliva and feces was the aim of this study involving 20 controls, 25 IBD (12 Crohn's Disease-CD), 37 CRC. By untargeted proteomic (LTQ-Orbitrap/MS), a total of 152 proteins were identified in saliva.

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Life cycle of the dimorphic sugarcane smut fungi, Sporisorium scitamineum, involves recognition and mating of compatible saprophytic yeast-like haploid sporidia (MAT-1 and MAT-2) that upon fusion, develop into infective dikaryotic mycelia. Although the dimorphic transition is intrinsically linked with the pathogenicity and virulence of S. scitamineum, it has never been studied using a proteomic approach.

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Early detection of bovine subclinical mastitis may improve treatment strategies and reduce the use of antibiotics. Herein, individual milk samples from Holstein cows affected by subclinical mastitis induced by and spp. were analyzed by untargeted and targeted mass spectrometry approaches to assess changes in their peptidome profiles and identify new potential biomarkers of the pathological condition.

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Cheese production is an applied biotechnology whose proper outcome relies strictly on the complex interactive dynamics which unfold within defined microbial groups. These may start being active from the collection of milk and continue up to its final stages of maturation. One of the critical parameters playing a major role is the milk refrigeration temperature before pasteurization as it can affect the proportion of psychrotrophic taxa abundance in the total milk bacterial population.

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In human cells BRAF oncogene is invariably expressed as a mix of two coding transcripts: BRAF-ref and BRAF-X1. These two mRNA isoforms, remarkably different in the sequence and length of their 3'UTRs, are potentially involved in distinct post-transcriptional regulatory circuits. Herein, we identify PARP1 among the mRNA Binding Proteins that specifically target the X1 3'UTR in melanoma cells.

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Background And Aim: SARS-CoV-2 infection spawns from an asymptomatic condition to a fatal disease. Age, comorbidities, and several blood biomarkers are associated with infection outcome. We searched for biomarkers by untargeted and targeted proteomic analysis of saliva, a source of viral particles and host proteins.

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Article Synopsis
  • - Mutations in the SPG11 gene, which encodes the protein spatacsin, are the main cause of a genetic condition called Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), characterized by thinning of the brain's corpus callosum.
  • - Previous research indicated that spatacsin is crucial for cellular transport processes, and its malfunction leads to issues with lysosomal and axonal transport.
  • - The study reveals that spatacsin interacts with a specific group of 14-3-3 proteins, and this interaction is influenced by the phosphorylation of spatacsin through Protein Kinase A (PKA), which regulates its movement within cells.
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Despite recent advances in the development of BRAF kinase inhibitors (BRAFi) for BRAF-mutant melanomas, development of resistance remains a major clinical problem. In addition to genetic alterations associated with intrinsic resistance, several adaptive response mechanisms are known to be rapidly activated to allow cell survival in response to treatment, limiting efficacy. A better understanding of the mechanisms driving resistance is urgently needed to improve the success of BRAF-targeted therapies and to make therapeutic intervention more durable.

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Numerous studies have shown that hedgehog inhibitors (iHHs) only partially block the growth of tumor cells, especially in vivo. Leukemia often expands in a nutrient-depleted environment (bone marrow and thymus). In order to identify putative signaling pathways implicated in the adaptive response to metabolically adverse conditions, we executed quantitative phospho-proteomics in T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) cells subjected to nutrient-depleted conditions (serum starvation).

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Heart failure is the worst outcome of all cardiovascular diseases and still represents nowadays the leading cause of mortality with no effective clinical treatments, apart from organ transplantation with allogeneic or artificial substitutes. Although applied as the gold standard, allogeneic heart transplantation cannot be considered a permanent clinical answer because of several drawbacks, as the side effects of administered immunosuppressive therapies. For the increasing number of heart failure patients, a biological cardiac substitute based on a decellularized organ and autologous cells might be the lifelong, biocompatible solution free from the need for immunosuppression regimen.

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Uterine leiomyoma presents the highest incidence among benign tumors of the female reproductive tract. The present study compared the proteome of leiomyoma treated with ulipristal acetate with that of untreated leiomyoma to investigate protein expression patterns in relation to oxidative stress. Paired tissue samples from seven treated and untreated leiomyomas were collected and the proteome was analyzed by two‑dimensional gel electrophoresis (2‑DE).

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Resurrection plant Ramonda serbica is a suitable model to investigate vegetative desiccation tolerance. However, the detailed study of these mechanisms at the protein level is hampered by the severe tissue water loss, high amount of phenolics and polysaccharide, and possible protein modifications and aggregations during the extraction and purification steps. When applied to R.

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The mitochondrial permeability transition pore (PTP) is a Ca-activated channel that plays a key role in cell death. Thiol oxidation facilitates PTP opening, yet the targets and molecular mechanisms still await a definition. Here, we investigate the role of C141 of F-ATP synthase oligomycin sensitivity conferral protein (OSCP) subunit in PTP modulation by oxidation.

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Protein hydrolysate (PH)-based biostimulants offer a cost-effective and sustainable approach for the regulation of physiological processes in plants to stimulate growth and improve stress tolerance. Understanding the mode of action of PHs is challenging, but it is indispensable to improve existing candidates and to develop novel molecules with enhanced stimulatory effects. Hence, the present study aimed to understand the proteome level responses in the B73 maize roots treated with APR, a PH biostimulant, at two increasing concentrations and to compare and integrate it with the transcriptomic data obtained previously under identical experimental conditions.

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Background The sensitivities and specificities of C-reactive protein (CRP) and faecal calprotectin (fCal), as recommended for inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) diagnosis and monitoring, are low. Our aim was to discover new stool protein/peptide biomarkers for diagnosing IBD. Methods For peptides, MALDI-TOF/MS (m/z 1000-4000) was performed using stools from an exploratory (34 controls; 72 Crohn's disease [CD], 56 ulcerative colitis [UC]) and a validation (28 controls, 27 CD, 15 UC) cohort.

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Background And Aims: Reduced bioavailability of nitric oxide (NO) has been implicated in the pathogenesis of calcific aortic stenosis. Herein, we investigated the effects of l-Arginine, the main precursor of NO, on the osteogenic differentiation of aortic interstitial valve cells (VICs).

Methods: We isolated a clonal population of bovine VICs that expresses osteogenic markers and induces calcification of collagen matrix after stimulation with endotoxin (LPS 500 ng/mL).

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In the brain of individuals with Alzheimer's disease, the regulatory protein ubiquitin is found conjugated to different lysine residues of tau protein assembled into pathological paired helical filaments. To shed light on the hitherto unexplored ubiquitination-linked conformational transitions of tau, the availability of in vitro ubiquitin conjugation methods is of primary importance. In our work, we focused on the four-repeat domain of tau and assembled an enzymatic machinery formed by UBE1, Ubc13, and CHIP enzymes.

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Impairment of the axonal transport system mediated by intracellular microtubules (MTs) is known to be a major drawback in neurodegenerative processes. Due to a growing interest on the neurotoxic effects of selenium in environmental health, our study aimed to assess the relationship between selenium and MTs perturbation, that may favour disease onset over a genetic predisposition to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. We treated a neuron-like cell line with sodium selenite, sodium selenate and seleno-methionine and observed that the whole cytoskeleton was affected.

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Article Synopsis
  • - The molecular identity of the mitochondrial megachannel/permeability transition pore (MMC/PTP), connected to cell death, is still debated in scientific circles.
  • - Research used highly purified bovine F-ATP synthase with liposomes to show that calcium (Ca) can disrupt the hydrogen gradient created by ATP hydrolysis, and its presence leads to currents similar to those produced by MMC/PTP.
  • - Channel activity was enhanced by a specific ligand (benzodiazepine 423), inhibited by magnesium (Mg), and adenine nucleotides, while unaffected by other channel inhibitors; the study concluded that calcium can change the F-ATP synthase from an energy-conserving to an energy-dissipating state
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Animal manure or bio-solids used as fertilizers are the main routes of antibiotic exposure in the agricultural land, which can have immense detrimental effects on plants. Sulfadiazine (SDZ), belonging to the class of sulfonamides, is one of the most detected antibiotics in the agricultural soil. In this study, the effect of SDZ on the growth, changes in antioxidant metabolite content and enzyme activities related to oxidative stress were analysed.

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  • CK2 (casein kinase-2) is a protein kinase involved in various cellular functions, with high levels linked to cancer.
  • Research using C2C12 myoblasts lacking either catalytic or β-subunits reveals that the absence of the β-subunit severely impairs cell growth, indicating its unique role beyond just being part of the CK2 holoenzyme.
  • A proteomics study identified over 1200 proteins with altered expression in CK2β cells, highlighting the β-subunit's involvement in numerous cellular processes such as the cell cycle and metabolism that are independent of the catalytic subunits.
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  • The study explores the role of specific subunits (e, g, and b) of F-ATP synthase in the formation of the permeability transition pore (PTP), a crucial channel in mitochondrial membranes, and its relation to calcium ion activity.
  • Researchers used yeast mutants and various techniques (like electron microscopy and electrophysiological assessments) to analyze mitochondrial behavior and F-ATP synthase function in the absence of these subunits.
  • Findings indicate that subunits e and g are essential for normal channel activity, and their absence significantly reduces the conductance of the channel, suggesting their critical role in PTP formation and stability.
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The cellular prion protein (PrP), whose misfolded conformers are implicated in prion diseases, localizes to both the presynaptic membrane and postsynaptic density. To explore possible molecular contributions of PrP to synaptic transmission, we utilized a mass spectrometry approach to quantify the release of glutamate from primary cerebellar granule neurons (CGN) expressing, or deprived of (PrP-KO), PrP, following a depolarizing stimulus. Under the same conditions, we also tracked recycling of synaptic vesicles (SVs) in the two neuronal populations.

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  • * The study focused on the myotoxin-II from Bothrops asper, which binds to proteins like nucleolin that are found both on the cell surface and within the cell.
  • * Confocal microscopy showed that this myotoxin and nucleolin interact at different cellular locations depending on the temperature, and inhibiting nucleolin reduced the toxin's internalization and toxicity.
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