Università della Svizzera italiana

Epithelial-mesenchymal transition in cancer metastasis through the lymphatic syste

Karlsson, Mikael C. ; Gonzalez, Santiago F. ; Welin, Josefin ; Fuxe, Jonas

In: Molecular oncology, 2017, vol. 11, p. 781–791

It was already in the 18th century when the French surgeon LeDran first noted that breast cancer patients with spread of tumor cells to their axillary lymph nodes had a drastically worse prognosis than patients without spread (LeDran et al., ). Since then, metastatic spread of cancer cells to regional lymph nodes has been established as the most important prognostic factor in many types of...

Università della Svizzera italiana

Modulation of chemokine responses : synergy and cooperativity

Proudfoot, Amanda E.I. ; Uguccioni, Mariagrazia

In: Frontiers in immunology, 2016, vol. 7, p. 183

Chemokine biology is mediated by more complex interactions than simple monomolecular ligand–receptor interactions, as chemokines can form higher order quaternary structures, which can also be formed after binding to glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) on endothelial cells, and their receptors are found as dimers and/or oligomers at the cell surface. Due to the complexity of the chemokine binding and...

Università della Svizzera italiana

Expression of CXCL12 receptors in B cells from Mexican Mestizos patients with systemic lupus erythematosus

Biajoux, Vincent ; Bignon, Alexandre ; Freitas, Christelle ; Martinez, Valérie ; Thelen, Marcus ; Lima, Guadalupe ; Jakez-Ocampo, Juan ; Emilie, Dominique ; Llorente, Luis ; Balabanian, Karl

In: Journal of translational medicine, 2012, vol. 10, no. 1, p. 251-267

Background: Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) is a chronic autoimmune disease characterized by B-cell hyperreactivity and the production of pathogenic anti-nuclear- directed auto-antibodies (Abs). B-cell ontogeny is partly dependent on the CXCL12/CXCR4 axis for which the contribution to SLE pathogenesis remains unclear. CXCR7, the novel receptor for CXCL12, is differentially expressed among...

Università della Svizzera italiana

Chemokine heterocomplexes and cancer : A novel chapter to be written in tumor immunity

D'Agostino, Gianluca ; Cecchinato, Valentina ; Uguccioni, Mariagrazia

In: Frontiers in immunology, 2018, vol. 9, p. 2185

Infiltrating immune cells are a key component of the tumor microenvironment and play central roles in dictating tumor fate, either promoting anti-tumor immune responses, or sustaining tumor growth, angiogenesis and metastasis. A distinctive microenvironment is often associated to different tumor types, with substantial differences in prognosis. The production of a variety of chemotactic...

Università della Svizzera italiana

Chemokines : chemistry, biochemistry and biological function

Legler, Daniel F. ; Thelen, Marcus

In: Chimia : International journal for chemistry, 2016, vol. 70, no. 12, p. 856-859

The in vitro synthesis of correctly folded functional proteins remains challenging. Chemokines, which consist of only 70–100 amino acids, are accessible through solid- phase synthesis and easily fold into a thermally stable tertiary structure. From the time of their discovery in the late 1980s chemokines could therefore be synthesized using biochemical and chemical protocols for...