Quantitative Life Sciences Seminar - 16 February

[Quantitative Life Sciences]

QUANTITATIVE LIFE SCIENCES SEMINAR

*Tuesday, 16 February**- 14:00**
**Central Area, 2nd floor - ICTP, old SISSA building*

_Title_: " Gene expression profiling as a tool for the identification of 
novel disease signature for neurodegeneration in humans"

_Speaker_: Prof. Giuseppe Legname, PI - Laboratory of Prion Biology, SISSA

_Abstract_:

Prion diseases or transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSE) are a 
class of fatal infectious neurodegenerative disorders whose pathogenesis 
mechanisms are not fully understood. The diseases manifest as sporadic, 
genetic or acquired. So far, neither specific biomarkers for early 
diagnosis nor effective therapeutic targets have been identified. The 
pathological molecular component of the diseases is a misfolded isoform 
of the prion protein (PrP) denoted as prion.
Mounting evidence suggests that in addition to gene coding for the PrP 
(PRNP) other genes may contribute to the genetic susceptibility of TSE. 
In this context, microarray-    based gene expression analyses offer 
unique tools to approach neurodegenerative disorders. In particular, 
transcriptome profiling can be used to identify altered transcripts in 
response to pathogens, and select potential targets for novel 
therapeutic approaches. Up to date, a number of studies have been 
carried out in order to investigate the gene expression alterations 
occurring in prion-infected organisms, but most of them involved animal 
models such as mice, sheep and cattle, which are not closely related to 
humans. Several studies have been performed on non-human primates but 
none of them have investigated the genomic outcome of prion infection. 
In this presentation, new sets of data will be presented in an attempt 
to delineate molecular mechanisms of prion diseases and identify genes 
that can modulate progression of these fatal maladies in humans.

_Web_: http://indico.ictp.it/event/7797/





-- 
Erica Sarnataro
Group Secretary
Quantitative Life Sciences
The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP)
Trieste,  Italy
Tel. +39-040-2240623
e-mail: qls at ictp.it