Publications by authors named "Massimiliano Pagani"

In preclinical experiments, cyclic fasting-mimicking diets (FMDs) showed broad anticancer effects in combination with chemotherapy. Among different tumor types, triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is exquisitely sensitive to FMD. However, the antitumor activity and efficacy of cyclic FMD in TNBC patients remain unclear.

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Cerebral cavernous malformations (CCMs) are anomalies of the cerebral vasculature. Loss of the CCM proteins CCM1/KRIT1, CCM2, or CCM3/PDCD10 trigger a MAPK-Krüppel-like factor 2 (KLF2) signaling cascade, which induces a pathophysiological pattern of gene expression. The downstream target genes that are activated by KLF2 are mostly unknown.

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Confined cell migration hampers genome integrity and activates the ATR and ATM mechano-transduction pathways. We investigated whether the mechanical stress generated by metastatic interstitial migration contributes to the enhanced chromosomal instability observed in metastatic tumor cells. We employed live cell imaging, micro-fluidic approaches, and scRNA-seq to follow the fate of tumor cells experiencing confined migration.

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Article Synopsis
  • Researchers used a 5' single-cell RNA sequencing method to identify where enhancer RNAs and other RNA types start in human CD4 T cells, uncovering variations in cell types and their development.
  • By combining these RNA datasets with single-cell chromatin profiles, they found that unique active enhancers and their RNA production are specific to certain cell types and are linked to disease risk.
  • The study created a detailed atlas of these enhancers that helps to understand how genetic variations are related to various immune-mediated diseases.
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Spatial transcriptomics (ST) methods unlock molecular mechanisms underlying tissue development, homeostasis, or disease. However, there is a need for easy-to-use, high-resolution, cost-efficient, and 3D-scalable methods. Here, we report Open-ST, a sequencing-based, open-source experimental and computational resource to address these challenges and to study the molecular organization of tissues in 2D and 3D.

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In recent years technologies that can achieve readouts at cellular resolution such as single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) have provided a comprehensive characterization of the cellular proportions and phenotypes that populate the tumor microenvironment (TME). However, because of the sample dissociation steps required by these protocols, they fail to capture information related to the intricate spatial context in which cells operate as well as their dense networks of interactions. Spatial profiling technologies have recently emerged as a valuable way to investigate the physical organization of cells crowding the TME in intact tissues.

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  • IFNγ-producing ex-Th17 cells, referred to as Th1/17, are significant in causing experimental colitis and are prevalent in the intestines of patients with Crohn's disease (CD).
  • A novel subset of Th17 cells, known as CCR5+ Th17 (pTh17), was identified in human intestines, co-expressing T-bet and RORC/γt, and was found to be linked to intestinal inflammation in CD, particularly responsive to the bacteria Escherichia coli associated with CD.
  • Successful treatments, like anti-TNF therapy and anti-IL-23 therapy, reduced pTh17 cell levels, highlighting their role as pro-inflammatory and potentially pathogenic in the context
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  • The establishment of 3D organoids from human tissues provides a new way to study both basic biology and diseases, particularly cancer, by mimicking the original tissue structure and function.
  • Patient-derived organoids (PDOs) capture the diversity of cancer cells, allowing researchers to examine tumor-specific regulatory networks in greater detail.
  • Utilizing techniques like chromatin immunoprecipitation sequencing (ChIP-seq) in these organoid models enables in-depth analysis of polycomb group proteins (PcGs) and their critical roles in tumor development and maintenance.
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Lipid and cholesterol metabolism play a crucial role in tumor cell behavior and in shaping the tumor microenvironment. In particular, enzymatic and non-enzymatic cholesterol metabolism, and derived metabolites control dendritic cell (DC) functions, ultimately impacting tumor antigen presentation within and outside the tumor mass, dampening tumor immunity and immunotherapeutic attempts. The mechanisms accounting for such events remain largely to be defined.

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Type 1 regulatory (Tr1) T cells are currently defined all T cells with regulatory functions that lack FOXP3 expression and produce IL-10. Tr1 cells are heterogeneous, and the different reported properties of Tr1-cell populations have caused some confusion in the field. Moreover, understanding the role of Tr1 cells in immune-mediated diseases has been hampered by the lack of a lineage-defining transcription factor.

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The process in which locally confined epithelial malignancies progressively evolve into invasive cancers is often promoted by unjamming, a phase transition from a solid-like to a liquid-like state, which occurs in various tissues. Whether this tissue-level mechanical transition impacts phenotypes during carcinoma progression remains unclear. Here we report that the large fluctuations in cell density that accompany unjamming result in repeated mechanical deformations of cells and nuclei.

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High Grade Serous Ovarian cancer (HGSOC) is a major unmet need in oncology, due to its precocious dissemination and the lack of meaningful human models for the investigation of disease pathogenesis in a patient-specific manner. To overcome this roadblock, we present a new method to isolate and grow single cells directly from patients' metastatic ascites, establishing the conditions for propagating them as 3D cultures that we refer to as single cell-derived metastatic ovarian cancer spheroids (sMOCS). By single cell RNA sequencing (scRNAseq) we define the cellular composition of metastatic ascites and trace its propagation in 2D and 3D culture paradigms, finding that sMOCS retain and amplify key subpopulations from the original patients' samples and recapitulate features of the original metastasis that do not emerge from classical 2D culture, including retention of individual patients' specificities.

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Ex vivo gene expression and miRNA profiling of Eomes Tr1-like cells suggested that they represent a differentiation stage that is intermediate between Th1-cells and cytotoxic CD4 T-cells. Several microRNAs were downregulated in Eomes Tr1-like cells that might inhibit Tr1-cell differentiation. In particular, miR-92a targeted Eomes, while miR-125a inhibited IFN-g and IL-10R expression.

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Regulatory T cells (Tregs) play fundamental roles in maintaining peripheral tolerance to prevent autoimmunity and limit legitimate immune responses, a feature hijacked in tumor microenvironments in which the recruitment of Tregs often extinguishes immune surveillance through suppression of T-effector cell signaling and tumor cell killing. The pharmacological tuning of Treg activity without impacting on T conventional (Tconv) cell activity would likely be beneficial in the treatment of various human pathologies. PIP4K2A, 2B, and 2C constitute a family of lipid kinases that phosphorylate PtdIns5 to PtdIns(4,5) They are involved in stress signaling, act as synthetic lethal targets in p53-null tumors, and in mice, the loss of PIP4K2C leads to late onset hyperinflammation.

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Regulatory T (T) cells are a barrier for tumor immunity and a target for immunotherapy. Using single-cell transcriptomics, we found that CD4 T cells infiltrating primary and metastatic colorectal cancer and non-small-cell lung cancer are highly enriched for two subsets of comparable size and suppressor function comprising forkhead box protein P3 T and eomesodermin homolog (EOMES) type 1 regulatory T (Tr1)-like cells also expressing granzyme K and chitinase-3-like protein 2. EOMES Tr1-like cells, but not T cells, were clonally related to effector T cells and were clonally expanded in primary and metastatic tumors, which is consistent with their proliferation and differentiation in situ.

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Article Synopsis
  • * Researchers compiled a catalog of 1116 lincRNAs and profiled nearly 100,000 single cells from the early human fetal striatum, revealing that D1 and D2 medium spiny neurons arise from a shared progenitor during the developmental phase.
  • * The findings highlight distinct gene regulatory networks for different cell types and identify human-specific lincRNAs that play a role in the unique evolution of the striatum in humans.
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Cancer is characterized by pervasive epigenetic alterations with enhancer dysfunction orchestrating the aberrant cancer transcriptional programs and transcriptional dependencies. Here, we epigenetically characterize human colorectal cancer (CRC) using de novo chromatin state discovery on a library of different patient-derived organoids. By exploring this resource, we unveil a tumor-specific deregulated enhancerome that is cancer cell-intrinsic and independent of interpatient heterogeneity.

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The exposure to pathogens triggers the activation of adaptive immune responses through antigens bound to surface receptors of antigen presenting cells (APCs). T cell receptors (TCR) are responsible for initiating the immune response through their physical direct interaction with antigen-bound receptors on the APCs surface. The study of T cell interactions with antigens is considered of crucial importance for the comprehension of the role of immune responses in cancer growth and for the subsequent design of immunomodulating anticancer drugs.

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MECP2 mutations cause Rett syndrome (RTT), a severe and progressive neurodevelopmental disorder mainly affecting females. Although RTT patients exhibit delayed onset of symptoms, several evidences demonstrate that MeCP2 deficiency alters early development of the brain. Indeed, during early maturation, Mecp2 null cortical neurons display widespread transcriptional changes, reduced activity, and defective morphology.

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Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) is a powerful single-cell technique that harnesses nucleic acid base pairing to detect the abundance and positioning of cellular RNA and DNA molecules in fixed samples. Recent technology development has paved the way to the construction of FISH probes entirely from synthetic oligonucleotides (oligos), allowing the optimization of thermodynamic properties together with the opportunity to design probes against any sequenced genome. However, comparatively little progress has been made in the development of computational tools to facilitate the oligos design, and even less has been done to extend their accessibility.

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Article Synopsis
  • Researchers have discovered that a specific transcription factor, IRF4, is expressed by a subset of CD4+ Tregs in tumors, contributing to their strong immunosuppressive abilities.
  • IRF4+ Tregs exhibited higher levels of suppressive molecules and were associated with T cell exhaustion in non-small-cell lung cancer cases.
  • Deleting the Irf4 gene in Tregs led to slowed tumor growth in mice, suggesting that targeting this pathway could improve cancer treatment strategies across various tumor types.
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Purpose: Defects in the homologous recombination (HR) repair pathway are of clinical interest due to sensitivity of HR-deficient cells to PARP inhibitors. We were interested in defining PARP vulnerability in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) carrying and mutations who display poor prognosis, have limited therapeutic options, and represent an unmet clinical need.

Experimental Design: We tested colorectal cancer cell lines, patient-derived organoids (PDO), and patient-derived xenografts (PDX) enriched for and mutations for sensitivity to the PARP inhibitor olaparib, and the chemotherapeutic agents oxaliplatin and 5-fluorouracil (5-FU).

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The regulation of the proliferation and polarity of neural progenitors is crucial for the development of the brain cortex. Animal studies have implicated glycogen synthase kinase 3 (GSK3) as a pivotal regulator of both proliferation and polarity, yet the functional relevance of its signaling for the unique features of human corticogenesis remains to be elucidated. We harnessed human cortical brain organoids to probe the longitudinal impact of GSK3 inhibition through multiple developmental stages.

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