Daniela Galli

Roles in dimerization and blue light photoresponse of the PAS and LOV domains of Neurospora crassa white collar proteins.

The genes coding for white collar‐1 and white collar‐2 (wc‐1 and wc‐2 ) have been isolated previously, and their products characterized as Zn‐finger transcription factors involved in the control of blue light‐induced genes. Here, we show that the PAS dimerization domains present in both proteins enable the WC‐1 and WC‐2 proteins to dimerize in vitro. Homodimers and heterodimers are formed between the white collar (WC) proteins. A computer analysis of WC‐1 reveals a second domain, called LOV, also identified in NPH1, a putative blue light photoreceptor in plants and conserved in redox‐sensitive proteins and in the phytochromes. The WC‐1 LOV domain does not dimerize with canonical PAS domains, but it is able to self‐dimerize. The isolation of three blind wc‐1 strains, each with a single amino acid substitution only in the LOV domain, reveals that this region is essential for blue light responses in Neurospora. The demonstration that the WC‐1 proteins in these LOV mutants are still able to self‐dimerize suggests that this domain plays an additional role, essential in blue light signal transduction.

Mesoangioblasts, Vessel-Associated Multipotent Stem Cells, Repair the Infarcted Heart by Multiple Cellular Mechanisms A Comparison With Bone Marrow Progenitors, Fibroblasts, and Endothelial Cells

Objective—To test the potential of mesoangioblasts (Mabs) in reducing postischemic injury in comparison with bone marrow progenitor cells (BMPCs), fibroblasts (Fbs), and embryonic stem cell–derived endothelial cells (ECs), and to identify putative cellular protective mechanisms. Methods and Results—Cells were injected percutaneously in the left ventricular (LV) chamber of C57BL/6 mice, 3 to 6 hours after coronary ligation, and detected in the hearts 2 days and 6 weeks later. Echocardiographic examinations were performed at 6 weeks. LV dilation was reduced and LV shortening fraction was improved with Mabs and BMPCs but not with ECs and Fbs. Donor cell colonization of the host myocardium was modest and predominantly in the smooth muscle layer of vessels. Capillary density was higher in the peripheral infarct area and apoptotic cardiomyocytes were fewer with Mabs and BMPCs. Mabs and BMPCs, but not Fbs or ECs, promoted survival of cultured cardiocytes under low-oxygen in culture. This activity was present in Mab-conditioned medium and could be replaced by a combination of basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF), insulin-like growth factor (IGF)-1, and hepatocyte growth factor (HGF), all of which are produced by these cells. Conditioned medium from Mabs, but not from Fbs, stimulated proliferation of smooth muscle cells in vitro. Conclusions—Mabs appear as effective as BMPCs in reducing postinfarction LV dysfunction, likely through production of antiapoptotic and angiogenic factors.

TGFbeta/BMP activate the smooth muscle/bone differentiation programs in mesoangioblasts

Mesoangioblasts are vessel-derived stem cells that can be induced to differentiate into different cell types of the mesoderm such as muscle and bone. The gene expression profile of four clonal derived lines of mesoangioblasts was determined by DNA micro-array analysis: it was similar in the four lines but different from 10T1/2 embryonic fibroblasts, used as comparison. Many known genes expressed by mesoangioblasts belong to response pathways to developmental signalling molecules, such as Wnt or TGFβ/BMP. Interestingly, mesoangioblasts express receptors of the TGFβ/BMP family and several Smads and, accordingly, differentiate very efficiently into smooth muscle cells in response to TGFβ and into osteoblasts in response to BMP. In addition, insulin signalling promotes adipogenic differentiation, possibly through the activation of IGF-R. Several Wnts and Frizzled, Dishevelled and Tcfs are expressed, suggesting the existence of an autocrine loop for proliferation and indeed, forced expression of Frzb-1 inhibits cell division. Mesoangioblasts also express many neuro-ectodermal genes and yet undergo only abortive neurogenesis, even after forced expression of neurogenin 1 or 2, MASH or NeuroD. Finally, mesoangioblasts express several pro-inflammatory genes, cytokines and cytokine receptors, which may explain their ability to be recruited by tissue inflammation. Our data define a unique phenotype for mesoangioblasts, explain several of their biological features and set the basis for future functional studies on the role of these cells in tissue histogenesis and repair.

Reversine-treated fibroblasts acquire myogenic competence in vitro and in regenerating skeletal muscle

Stem cells hold a great potential for the regeneration of damaged tissues in cardiovascular or musculoskeletal diseases. Unfortunately, problems such as limited availability, control of cell fate, and allograft rejection need to be addressed before therapeutic applications may become feasible. Generation of multipotent progenitors from adult differentiated cells could be a very attractive alternative to the limited in vitro self-renewal of several types of stem cells. In this direction, a recently synthesized unnatural purine, named reversine, has been proposed to induce reversion of adult cells to a multipotent state, which could be then converted into other cell types under appropriate stimuli. Our study suggests that reversine treatment transforms primary murine and human dermal fibroblasts into myogenic-competent cells both in vitro and in vivo. Moreover, this is the first study to demonstrate that plasticity changes arise in primary mouse and human cells following reversine exposure.

miR669a and miR669q prevent skeletal muscle differentiation in postnatal cardiac progenitors

miR669a and miR669q inhibit postnatal cardiac progenitor differentiation by directly targeting the 3′UTR of MyoD.

Multiplexing and demultiplexing logic functions for computing signal processing tasks in synthetic biology

Building biological devices to perform computational and signal processing tasks is one of the main research issues in synthetic biology. Herein, two modular biological systems that could mimic multiplexing and demultiplexing logic functions are proposed and discussed. These devices, called multiplexer (mux) and demultiplexer (demux), respectively, have a remarkable importance in electronic, telecommunication, and signal processing systems and, similarly, they could play a crucial role if implemented in a living organism, such as Escherichia coli. BioBrick standard parts were used to design mux and demux and to construct two genetic circuits that could carry out the desired tasks. A modular approach, mimicking basic logic gates (AND, OR, and NOT) with protein/autoinducer or protein/DNA interactions and interconnecting them to create the final circuits, was adopted. A mathematical model of the designed gene networks was been defined and simulations performed to validate the expected behavior of the systems. In addition, circuit subparts were tested in vivo and the results used to determine some of the parameters of the mathematical model. According to both the experimental and simulated results, guidelines for future finalization of mux and demux are provided.

Skeletal myogenic progenitors in the endothelium of lung and yolk sac

We previously showed that clonable skeletal myogenic cells can be derived from the embryonic aorta but become very rare in the more mature and structured fetal aorta. The aim of this study was to investigate whether, during fetal and postnatal development, these myogenic progenitors progressively disappear or may rather associate with the microvascular district, being thus distributed to virtually all tissues. To test this hypothesis, we used F1 embryos (or mice) from a transgenic line expressing a striated muscle-specific reporter gene (LacZ) crossed with a transgenic line expressing a different endothelial-specific reporter genes (GFP). Endothelial cells were isolated from yolk sac (at E11) and lung (at E11, E17, P1, P10, and P60), two organs embryologically unrelated to paraxial mesoderm, rich in vessels, and devoid of skeletal muscle. Endothelial cells, purified by magnetic bead selection (CD31/PECAM-1(+)) or cell sorting (Tie2-GFP(+)) were then challenged for their skeletal myogenic potential in vitro and in vivo. The results demonstrated that both yolk sac and lung contain progenitor cells, which express endothelial markers and are endowed with a skeletal myogenic potential that they reveal when in the presence of differentiating myoblasts, in vitro, and regenerating muscle, in vivo. The number (or potency to generate skeletal muscle) of these vessels associated cells decreases rapidly with age and is very low in mature animals, possibly correlating with reduced regenerative capacity of adult mammalian tissues.

In vitro osteoblastic differentiation of human mesenchymal stem cells and human dental pulp stem cells on poly-L-lysine-treated titanium-6-aluminium-4-vanadium

Three-dimensional (3D) titanium-6-aluminium-4-vanadium (Ti6Al4V) is a widely used biomaterial for orthopedic prosthesis and dental implants; thanks to its very high-mechanical strength and resistance to corrosion. Human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) and dental pulp stem cells (hDPSCs) are responsible for bone regeneration following colonization of prosthesis or dental implants. Both hMSCs and hDPSCs have lower ability to colonize this biomaterial in comparison with tissue culture-treated plastic. Both hMSCs and hDPSCs show lack of focal adhesion kinase (FAK) activation when grown on Ti6Al4V. This signal is restored in the presence of poly-L-lysine (poly-L-lys). Poly-L-lys has been used as part of organoapatite or together with zinc and calcium ions. Our results suggest that poly-L-lys alone induces FAK activation through β1-INTEGRIN, because the presence of β1-INTEGRIN blocking antibody avoided FAK autophosphorylation. Presence of poly-L-lys also increases expression of osteoblastic differentiation marker genes in hMSCs and hDPSCs grown on Ti6Al4V.

The role of PKCε-dependent signaling for cardiac differentiation

Protein kinase Cepsilon (PKCε) exerts a well-known cardio-protective activity in ischemia–reperfusion injury and plays a pivotal role in stem cell proliferation and differentiation. Although many studies have been performed on physiological and morphological effects of PKCε mis-expression in cardiomyocytes, molecular information on the role of PKCε on early cardiac gene expression are still lacking. We addressed the molecular role of PKCε in cardiac cells using mouse cardiomyocytes and rat bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells. We show that PKCε is modulated in cardiac differentiation producing an opposite regulation of the cardiac genes NK2 transcription factor related, locus 5 (nkx2.5) and GATA binding protein 4 (gata4) both in vivo and in vitro. Phospho-extracellular regulated mitogen-activated protein kinase 1/2 (p-ERK1/2) levels increase in PKCε over-expressing cells, while pkcε siRNAs produce a decrease in p-ERK1/2. Indeed, pharmacological inhibition of ERK1/2 rescues the expression levels of both nkx2.5 and gata4, suggesting that a reinforced (mitogen-activated protein kinase) MAPK signaling is at the basis of the observed inhibition of cardiac gene expression in the PKCε over-expressing hearts. We demonstrate that PKCε is critical for cardiac cell early gene expression evidencing that this protein is a regulator that has to be fine tuned in precursor cardiac cells.

Low-amplitude high frequency vibration down-regulates myostatin and atrogin-1 expression, two components of the atrophy pathway in muscle cells.

Whole body vibration (WBV) is a very widespread mechanical stimulus used in physical therapy, rehabilitation and fitness centres. It has been demonstrated that vibration induces improvements in muscular strength and performance and increases bone density. We investigated the effects of low‐amplitude, high frequency vibration (HFV) at the cellular and tissue levels in muscle. We developed a system to produce vibrations adapted to test several parameters in vitro and in vivo. For in vivo experiments, we used newborn CD1 wild‐type mice, for in vitro experiments, we isolated satellite cells from 6‐day‐old CD1 mice, while for proliferation studies, we used murine cell lines. Animals and cells were treated with high frequency vibration at 30 Hz. We analyzed the effects of mechanical stimulation on muscle hypertrophy/atrophy pathways, fusion enhancement of myoblast cells and modifications in the proliferation rate of cells. Results demonstrated that mechanical vibration strongly down‐regulates atrophy genes both in vivo and in vitro. The in vitro experiments indicated that mechanical stimulation promotes fusion of satellite cells treated directly in culture compared to controls. Finally, proliferation experiments indicated that stimulated cells had a decreased growth rate compared to controls. We concluded that vibration treatment at 30 Hz is effective in suppressing the atrophy pathway both in vivo and in vitro and enhances fusion of satellite muscle cells. Copyright