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Università della Svizzera italiana

The antibody response to Plasmodium falciparum : cues for vaccine design and the discovery of receptor-based antibodies

Tan, Joshua ; Piccoli, Luca ; Lanzavecchia, Antonio

In: Annual Review of Immunology

P. falciparum remains a serious public health problem and a continuous challenge for the immune system due to the complexity and diversity of the pathogen. Recent advances from several laboratories in the characterization of the antibody response to the parasite have led to the identification of critical targets for protection and revealed a new mechanism of diversification based on the...

Università della Svizzera italiana

CCR2 acts as scavenger for CCL2 during monocyte chemotaxis

Volpe, Silvia ; Cameroni, Elisabetta ; Moepps, Barbara ; Thelen, Sylvia ; Apuzzo, Tiziana ; Thelen, Marcus

In: Plos one, 2012, vol. 7, no. 5, p. e37208

Background: Leukocyte migration is essential for effective host defense against invading pathogens and during immune homeostasis. A hallmark of the regulation of this process is the presentation of chemokines in gradients stimulating leukocyte chemotaxis via cognate chemokine receptors. For efficient migration, receptor responsiveness must be maintained whilst the cells crawl on cell surfaces...

Università della Svizzera italiana

Computational docking of antibody-antigen complexes, opportunities and pitfalls illustrated by influenza hemagglutinin

Pedotti, Mattia ; Simonelli, Luca ; Livoti, Elsa ; Varani, Luca

In: International journal of molecular sciences, 2011, vol. 12, no. 1, p. 226-251

Antibodies play an increasingly important role in both basic research and the pharmaceutical industry. Since their efficiency depends, in ultimate analysis, on their atomic interactions with an antigen, studying such interactions is important to understand how they function and, in the long run, to design new molecules with desired properties. Computational docking, the process of predicting...

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

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

Antibody binding modulates conformational exchange in domain III of dengue virus E protein

Moraes, Adolfo H. ; Simonelli, Luca ; Pedotti, Mattia ; Almeida, Fabio C.L. ; Varani, Luca ; Valente, Ana P.

In: Journal of virology, 2016, vol. 90, no. 4, p. 1802-1811

Domain III of dengue virus E protein (DIII) participates in the recognition of cell receptors and in structural rearrangements required for membrane fusion and ultimately viral infection; furthermore, it contains epitopes for neutralizing antibodies and has been considered a potential vaccination agent. In this work, we addressed various structural aspects of DIII and their relevance for both...