Università della Svizzera italiana

Dexamethasone induces changes in osteogenic differentiation of human mesenchymal stromal cells via SOX9 and PPARG, but not RUNX2

Della Bella, Elena ; Buetti-Dinh, Antoine ; Licandro, Ginevra ; Ahmad, Paras ; Basoli, Valentina ; Alini, Mauro ; Stoddart, Martin J.

In: International journal of molecular sciences, 2021, vol. 22, no. 9, p. 16

Despite the huge body of research on osteogenic differentiation and bone tissue engineering, the translation potential of in vitro results still does not match the effort employed. One reason might be that the protocols used for in vitro research have inherent pitfalls. The synthetic glucocorticoid dexamethasone is commonly used in protocols for trilineage differentiation of human bone marrow...

Università della Svizzera italiana

Epigenetic and transcriptional control of mast cell responses

Monticelli, Silvia ; Leoni

In: F1000 research, 2017, vol. 6, p. 2064

Mast cells are tissue-resident, innate immune cells present in most tissues of the body and are important effector and immunomodulatory cells. Differentiated mast cells typically are characterized by the surface expression of the receptors KIT and FcεRI, the latter especially being important for stimulation through IgE antibodies, although these cells have the ability to respond to a wide...

Università della Svizzera italiana

Hitting the right spot : mechanism of action of OPB‐31121, a novel and potent inhibitor of the Signal Transducer and Activator of Transcription 3 (STAT3)

Brambilla, Lara ; Genini, Davide ; Laurini, Erik ; Merulla, Jessica ; Perez, Laurent ; Fermeglia, Maurizio ; Carbone, Giuseppina M. ; Pricl, Sabrina ; Catapano, Carlo V.

In: Molecular oncology, 2015, vol. 9, no. 6, p. 1194-1206

STAT3 is a key element in many oncogenic pathways and, like other transcription factors, is an attractive target for development of novel anticancer drugs. However, interfering with STAT3 functions has been a difficult task and very few small molecule inhibitors have made their way to the clinic. OPB‐31121, an anticancer compound currently in clinical trials, has been reported to affect...