Antonio De Maio,
Professor
The investigations conducted by my research team have been very innovative in many areas, particularly our pioneer work demonstrating the genetic contribution in the response to injury. We were among the first to use mouse genetic approaches to map modifier genes of the response to sepsis. Our subsequent studies have also shown the contribution of other factors, such as diet and sex, to the inflammatory response. Other studies from our group have shown the importance of lipid metabolism in the function of macrophages. Our interest in lipid metabolism has been extended to investigate how inhibition of the cholesterol biosynthetic pathway affects macrophage function and how the extracellular lipid environment modulates this cell polarization. More recently, we investigated how membrane phospholipids modulate the macrophage transcriptome. Other investigations by our research group focus on the pathophysiology of sepsis, in particular how metabolic pathways are altered during this condition. I also have extensive experience in glycobiology, including the characterization of cell surface glycoconjugates, modification of glycoproteins by inhibitors of the cholesterol biosynthetic pathways and analysis of O-GlcNAc modified ribosomal proteins.
I have made several important discoveries in the field of heat shock proteins, including the stabilization of translation by heat shock proteins. Moreover, I demonstrate that Hsp70, a cytosolic protein, was capable of getting inserted into lipid membranes and forming ion conductance pathways. These investigations have been followed for the characterization of the interaction of this protein with lipid membranes and their role in the extracellular environment as signaling molecules. I have also been investigating the potential therapeutic role of extracellular Hsp70 in the context of Alzheimer’s disease.
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