0000000000154351
AUTHOR
Susanna Dolci
showing 5 related works from this author
Type 5 phosphodiesterase (PDE5) and the vascular tree: from embryogenesis to aging and disease
2020
Highlights • Vascular development depends on the timely differentiation of endothelial and smooth muscle cells, that mutually influence their developmental fate. • Endothelial and vascular smooth muscle cell (VSMC) compartments can mutually influence cell and tissue modifications during vascular aging and in vascular disease. • Keeping in mind that PDE5 is mainly expressed in VSMCs, we surveyed the literature on the role of PDE5 in vascular development, aging and disease. • Although most results have been obtained by PDE5 pharmacological inhibition, no data are available, to date, on vascular development, aging or disease following PDE5 genetic ablation.
Regulation of PDE5 expression in human aorta and thoracic aortic aneurysms
2019
AbstractAneurysms and dissections affecting thoracic aorta are associated with smooth muscle cell (SMC) dysfunction. NO/cGMP signaling pathway in smooth muscle cells has been shown to be affected in sporadic thoracic aortic aneurysms. We analyzed the mRNA levels of PDE5, a cGMP-hydrolyzing enzyme highly expressed in aortic SMCs, that regulates arterious vascular tone by lowering cGMP levels. We found that aortic tissue obtained from Marfan, tricuspid and bicuspid thoracic aneurysms expressed lower levels of PDE5 mRNA compared to control aortas. In particular, we found that affected aortas showed lower levels of all the PDE5A isoforms, compared to control aortas. Transfection of vascular SMC…
Impact of age and gender on glioblastoma onset, progression, and management
2023
Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most common primary malignant brain tumor in adults, while its frequency in pe-diatric patients is 10-15%. For this reason, age is considered one of the major risk factors for the development of GBM, as it correlates with cellular aging phenomena involving glial cells and favoring the process of tumor transformation. Gender differences have been also identified, as the incidence of GBM is higher in males than in females, coupled with a worse outcome. In this review, we analyze age-and gender-dependent differences in GBM onset, mutational landscape, clinical manifestations, and survival, according to the literature of the last 20 years, focusing on the major risk fa…
Red Blood Cell Distribution Width, Vascular Aging Biomarkers, and Endothelial Progenitor Cells for Predicting Vascular Aging and Diagnosing/Prognosin…
2018
The emerging evidence emphasizes Red blood cell distribution width (RDW) as optimal prognostic biomarker for cardiovascular diseases. However, several clinical biases impede its clinical application. Recent recommendations suggest combining RDW with other biomarkers. Accordingly, we propose evaluating the well-recognized biomarkers of vascular aging (i.e., the leukocyte telomere length and telomerase activity, and reduced levels of endothelial progenitor cells [EPCs]) with RDW, for predicting the risk for vascular aging and onset and prognosis of age-related degenerative arterial diseases, such as sporadic ascending aorta aneurysm (AAA), characterized to have an increased incidence in old p…
To Be or Not to Be a Germ Cell: The Extragonadal Germ Cell Tumor Paradigm
2021
In the human embryo, the genetic program that orchestrates germ cell specification involves the activation of epigenetic and transcriptional mechanisms that make the germline a unique cell population continuously poised between germness and pluripotency. Germ cell tumors, neoplasias originating from fetal or neonatal germ cells, maintain such dichotomy and can adopt either pluripotent features (embryonal carcinomas) or germness features (seminomas) with a wide range of phenotypes in between these histotypes. Here, we review the basic concepts of cell specification, migration and gonadal colonization of human primordial germ cells (hPGCs) highlighting the analogies of transcriptional/epigene…