Università della Svizzera italiana

A bispecific immunotweezer prevents soluble PrP oligomers and abolishes prion toxicity

Bardelli, Marco ; Frontzek, Karl ; Simonelli, Luca ; Hornemann, Simone ; Pedotti, Mattia ; Mazzola, Federica ; Carta, Manfredi ; Eckhardt, Valeria ; D’Antuono, Rocco ; Virgilio, Tommaso ; González, Santiago F. ; Aguzzi, Adriano ; Varani, Luca

In: Plos pathogens, 2018, vol. 14, no. 10, p. e1007335

Antibodies to the prion protein, PrP, represent a promising therapeutic approach against prion diseases but the neurotoxicity of certain anti-PrP antibodies has caused concern. Here we describe scPOM-bi, a bispecific antibody designed to function as a molecular prion tweezer. scPOM-bi combines the complementarity-determining regions of the neurotoxic antibody POM1 and the neuroprotective...

Università della Svizzera italiana

Differential expression and biochemical activity of the immune receptor Tim-3 in healthy and malignant human myeloid cells

Gonçalves Silva, Isabel ; Gibbs, Bernhard F. ; Bardelli, Marco ; Varani, Luca ; Sumbayev, Vadim V.

In: Oncotarget, 2015, vol. 6, no. 32, p. 33823-33833

The T cell immunoglobulin and mucin domain 3 (Tim-3) is a plasma membrane-associated receptor which is involved in a variety of biological responses in human immune cells. It is highly expressed in most acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) cells and therefore may serve as a possible target for AML therapy. However, its biochemical activities in primary human AML cells remain unclear. We therefore...

Università della Svizzera italiana

The Tim-3-Galectin-9 Pathway and Its Regulatory Mechanisms in Human Breast Cancer

Yasinska, Inna M. ; Sakhnevych, Svetlana S. ; Pavlova, Ludmila ; Hansen Selnø, Anette Teo ; Teuscher Abeleira, Ana Maria ; Benlaouer, Ouafa ; Gonçalves Silva, Isabel ; Mosimann, Marianne ; Varani, Luca ; Bardelli, Marco ; Hussain, Rohanah ; Siligardi, Giuliano ; Cholewa, Dietmar ; Berger, Steffen M. ; Gibbs, Bernhard F. ; Ushkaryov, Yuri A. ; Fasler-Kan, Elizaveta ; Klenova, Elena ; Sumbayev, Vadim V.

In: Frontiers in immunology, 2019, vol. 10, p. 1594

Human cancer cells operate a variety of effective molecular and signaling mechanisms which allow them to escape host immune surveillance and thus progress the disease. We have recently reported that the immune receptor Tim-3 and its natural ligand galectin-9 are involved in the immune escape of human acute myeloid leukemia (AML) cells. These cells use the neuronal receptor latrophilin 1...

Università della Svizzera italiana

The tim-3-galectin-9 secretory pathway is involved in the immune escape of human acute myeloid leukemia cells

Gonçalves Silva, Isabel ; Yasinska, Inna M. ; Sakhnevych, Svetlana S. ; Fiedler, Walter ; Wellbrock, Jasmin ; Bardelli, Marco ; Varani, Luca ; Hussain, Rohanah ; Siligardi, Giulio ; Ceccone, Giacomo ; Berger, Steffen M. ; Ushkaryov, Yuri A. ; Gibbs, Bernhard F. ; Fasler-Kan, Elizaveta ; Sumbayev, Vadim V.

In: Ebiomedicine, 2017, vol. 22, p. 44-57

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a severe and often fatal systemic malignancy. Malignant cells are capable of escaping host immune surveillance by inactivating cytotoxic lymphoid cells. In this work we discovered a fundamental molecular pathway, which includes ligand-dependent activation of ectopically expressed latrophilin 1 and possibly other G-protein coupled receptors leading to increased...