Publications by authors named "Nara Marella"

Article Synopsis
  • The study focused on identifying unique metabolomic signatures in patients with porto-sinusoidal vascular disorder (PSVD) and cirrhosis to improve diagnosis.
  • Serum samples from healthy volunteers and patients with PSVD or cirrhosis were analyzed using advanced techniques like liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry, identifying significant metabolic changes linked to PSVD.
  • Machine learning models were developed to distinguish PSVD from cirrhosis and healthy controls; key metabolites like taurocholic acid showed strong potential for non-invasive diagnostic use.
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The complement system is a vital anti-microbial defence mechanism against circulating pathogens. Excessive complement activation can have deleterious outcomes for the host and is consequently tightly modulated by a set of membrane-associated and fluid-phase regulators of complement activation (RCAs). Here, we demonstrate that severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) hijacks host cellular RCA members CD55 and CD59 and serum-derived Factor H (FH) to resist antibody-dependent complement-mediated lysis triggered by immunized human sera.

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Chemical modulation of proteins enables a mechanistic understanding of biology and represents the foundation of most therapeutics. However, despite decades of research, 80% of the human proteome lacks functional ligands. Chemical proteomics has advanced fragment-based ligand discovery toward cellular systems, but throughput limitations have stymied the scalable identification of fragment-protein interactions.

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Recombinant human leptin (metreleptin) reduces hepatic lipid content in patients with lipodystrophy and overweight patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and relative hypoleptinemia independent of its anorexic action. In rodents, leptin signaling in the brain increases very-low-density lipoprotein triglyceride (VLDL-TG) secretion and reduces hepatic lipid content via the vagus nerve. In this randomized, placebo-controlled crossover trial (EudraCT Nr.

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Cancer-associated, loss-of-function mutations in genes encoding subunits of the BRG1/BRM-associated factor (BAF) chromatin-remodeling complexes often cause drastic chromatin accessibility changes, especially in important regulatory regions. However, it remains unknown how these changes are established over time (for example, immediate consequences or long-term adaptations), and whether they are causative for intracomplex synthetic lethalities, abrogating the formation or activity of BAF complexes. In the present study, we use the dTAG system to induce acute degradation of BAF subunits and show that chromatin alterations are established faster than the duration of one cell cycle.

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