SEMINAR: Inés Domingo / Amparo Andrés

17dec12:3013:30SEMINAR: Inés Domingo / Amparo Andrés

Event Details

12:30 – 13:00 Inés Domingo

Using NMR-mediated Metabolomics to Characterize Breast Cancer-associated Alterations to Vital Biochemical Pathways

While diagnostics and treatments for breast cancer, the most common cancer in women worldwide, have seen recent improvements, a deeper understanding of disease-associated biomolecular alterations may help to further improve patient outcomes. Advances in our understanding have particular relevance for patients with severe forms of the disease, such as triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) and associated metastasis.

In this context, the profiling of cellular and subcellular metabolic alterations holds significant interest, and NMR metabolomics has shown promise in identifying alterations in breast cancer patient samples and exploring the efficacy of therapeutic strategies.

The main objectives of my Ph.D. include:

  • the optimization of an NMR metabolomics methodology for the analysis of mitochondria isolated from in vitro and in vivo models of TNBC
  • the analysis and comparison of metabolomic profiles from total tissue/cell and mitochondrial extracts
  • the metabolomic study of total cell and mitochondrial extracts from TNBC models treated with mitochondrially-targeted therapeutics

Current methodologies result in NMR spectra of good resolution that allow the identification of various metabolites; furthermore, we have employed these techniques to describe the significantly different metabolomic profiles of mitochondria compared to total tissue. We have also demonstrated the differential metabolic signatures of mitochondria isolated from lung, liver, and kidney from healthy and TNBC model mice, which may support a deeper understanding of breast cancer metastasis given the status of these organs as major metastatic sites and the development of targeted therapies.

13:30 – 13:30 Amparo Andrés

Epilepsy study: search for diagnosis/prognostic biomarkers.

Epilepsy is one of most frequent chronic diseases among children, including mendelian and complex forms. In fact, one in 20 people within pediatric age range may have a seizure before the age of 5, and one in 150 will develop epilepsy. To classify them is complicated due to the wide spectrum of etiologies and the influence of several factors such as age, frequency of the crisis, medication or the presence of lesions. Recently, epigenetic modulators such as microRNAs have been identified whose peripheral expression could be helpful to stratify patients with epilepsy according to different origins or clinical evolution.

miRNAs are small non-coding RNAs whose function is the post-transcriptional control of gene expression, regulating protein levels in cells. More than 600 miRNAs are known and almost half of them are expressed in the brain, revealing a high interest in the research of neurological diseases. miRNAs offer several advantages over different potential biomarkers since their expression in specific tissues, such as blood, is relatively stable. The search for miRNAs as biomarkers in epilepsy is very recent. The discovery of potential biomarkers in the blood could be very useful to stablish a more effective diagnosis and prognosis in subgroups of patients with epilepsy and a shows a potential for the development of new therapeutic targets.

Time

(Friday) 12:30 - 13:30(GMT+01:00)

Location

Centro de Investigación Príncipe Felipe

Eduardo Primo Yúfera, 3 Valencia Spain