Elena Niccolai

University of Florence | UNIFI · Dipartimento di Medicina Sperimentale e Clinica

Abstract: Familial hypercholesterolemia is a common genetic disorder with a propensity towards early onset of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (CVD). The main goal of therapy is to reduce the LDL cholesterol and the current treatment generally consists of statin, ezetimibe and PCSK9 inhibitors. Unfortunately, lowering LDL cholesterol may be d...

Background Approximately 95% of Colorectal cancers (CRC) consist of adenocarcinomas originating from colonic Adenomatous polyps (AP). Increasing importance in CRC occurrence and progression has been attributed to the gut microbiota; however, a huge proportion of microorganisms inhabit the human digestive system. So, to comprehensively study the mic...

Introduction: Calcific aortic valve disease (CAVD) is the most common heart valve disorder, defined by a remodeling multistep process: namely, valve fibrosis with its area narrowing, impaired blood flow, and final calcification phase. Nowadays, the only treatment is the surgical valve replacement. As for other cardiovascular diseases, growing evid...

Microbiome research has enormous potential in cancer research and the use of formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissues could offer many advantages. The tumor microenvironment represents a suitable niche for specific microbes and evidence proves the presence of an endogenous tumor microbiota, here referred to as oncobiota. Awareness of the onc...

Introduction Potential celiac disease (pCD) is characterized by genetic predisposition, positive anti-endomysial and anti-tissue transglutaminase antibodies, but a normal or almost normal jejunal mucosa (e.g., minor histological abnormalities without villous atrophy). To gain further insights into basic mechanisms involved in the development of int...

Eosinophilic granulomatosis with polyangiitis (EGPA) is an anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibody (ANCA)-associated vasculitis. A genome-wide association study showed a correlation between ANCA-negative EGPA and variants of genes encoding proteins with intestinal barrier functions, suggesting that modifications of the mucosal layer and consequent gut...

Gut microbiota is a complex ecosystem composed by trillions of microorganisms that are crucial for human health or disease status. Currently, there are two methodological options to explore its complexity: metagenomics and culturomics. Culturomics is an approach that uses multiple culture conditions (days of incubation, enrichment factors and growt...

Background: Fibromyalgia (FM) syndrome is mainly characterized by widespread pain, sleeping disorders, fatigue, and cognitive dysfunction. In many cases, gastrointestinal distress is also reported, suggesting the potential pathogenic role of the gut microbiota (GM). The GM is deeply influenced by several environmental factors, especially the diet,...

Background: Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) infection is characterized by persistent systemic inflammation and immune activation, even in patients receiving effective antiretroviral therapy (ART). Converging data from many cross-sectional studies suggest that gut microbiota (GM) changes can occur throughout including human immunodefici...

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis is a fatal motor neuron disease characterised by degenerative changes in both upper and lower motor neurons. Current treatment options in the general cohort of ALS patients have only a minimal impact on survival. Only two approved medications are available today, just addressing the management of symptoms and supportin...

AMBROSIA aims to develop an innovative food product to prevent undernutrition in heart failure (HF) and atrial fibrillation (AF) older patients: a new chocolate AMBROSIA bar containing a specific mix of probiotic strains and a cocktail of micro/macronutrients (fibers, protein hydrolysates, coenzyme Q10); further studies on the metabolism and absorp...

Mutations in Matrin-3 (MATR3) gene have been described in ALS, suggesting a role for this gene in the disease pathogenesis. While most of MATR3 mutations are point mutations, here we report the first case of ALS associated with duplication in exons 15 and 16. The patient presented with limb-onset ALS and a complex past medical history because of Sj...

BACKGROUND Colorectal cancer (CRC), the third most common cause of death in both males and females worldwide, shows a positive response to therapy and usually a better prognosis when detected at an early stage. However, the survival rate declines when the diagnosis is late and the tumor spreads to other organs. Currently, the measures widely used i...

We conducted a screening analysis to assess the presence of a characteristic extracellular circulating microRNAs (ci-miRNAs) profile in Behçet's syndrome (BS). Total RNA was extracted from platelets-free plasma (PFP) samples obtained from 16 BS patients and 18 healthy controls. Ci-miRNAs profiling was conducted by using dedicated Agilent microarray...

Recent findings linked gastrointestinal disorders characterized by abdominal pain to gut microbiota composition. The present work aimed to evaluate the power of gut microbiota as a visceral pain modulator and, consequently, the relevance of its manipulation as a therapeutic option in reversing post-inflammatory visceral pain persistence. Colitis wa...

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is a neurodegenerative disorder with an unknown etiology and no effective treatment, and is characterized by large phenotypic heterogeneity, including variable sites, ages of symptom onset and rates of disease progression. Increasing data support the role of the microbiota-immunity axis in the pathogenesis of neu...

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a debilitating and rapidly fatal neurodegenerative disease. Despite decades of research and many new insights into disease biology over the 150 years since the disease was first described, causative pathogenic mechanisms in ALS remain poorly understood, especially in sporadic cases. Our understanding of the ro...

Over the past decade, there have been remarkable advances in understanding the signaling pathways involved in cancer development. It is well-established that cancer is caused by the dysregulation of cellular pathways involved in proliferation, cell cycle, apoptosis, cell metabolism, migration, cell polarity, and differentiation. Besides, growing ev...

Altered circulating levels of free fatty acids (FFAs), namely short chain fatty acids (SCFAs), medium chain fatty acids (MCFAs), and long chain fatty acids (LCFAs), are associated with metabolic, gastrointestinal, and malignant diseases. Hence, we compared the serum FFA profile of patients with celiac disease (CD), adenomatous polyposis (AP), and c...

Background and aims Crohn’s Disease (CD) pathogenesis is still unclear. Disorders in the mucosal immunoregulation and its crosstalk with the microbiota may represent an important component in tissue injury. We aimed to characterize the molecular immune response distribution within the ileal layers and to evaluate the correlated microbiota in pathol...

Background and aim Gut microbiota (GM) can support colorectal cancer (CRC) progression by modulating immune responses through the production of both immunostimulatory and/or immunosuppressive cytokines. The role of IL-9 is paradigmatic because it can either promote tumor progression in hematological malignancies or inhibit tumorigenesis in solid ca...

Cisplatin is a chemotherapeutic agent widely used for the treatment of solid cancers. Its administration is commonly associated with acute and chronic gastrointestinal dysfunctions, likely related to mucosal and enteric nervous system (ENS) injuries, respectively. Glucagon-like peptide-2 (GLP-2) is a pleiotropic hormone exerting trophic/reparative...

Background. Recent findings linked gastrointestinal disorders characterized by abdominal pain to gut microbiota composition. The present work aimed to evaluate the power of gut microbiota as a visceral pain modulator and, consequently, the relevance of its manipulation as a therapeutic option in reversing the persistence of visceral hypersensitivit...

Background: Recent findings linked gastrointestinal disorders characterized by abdominal pain to gut microbiota composition. The present work aimed to evaluate the power of gut microbiota as a visceral pain modulator and, consequently, the relevance of its manipulation as a therapeutic option in reversing the persistence of visceral hypersensitivit...

Purpose We evaluated the effect of low-calorie mediterranean (MD) and vegetarian (VD) diets on gut microbiome (GM) composition and short-chain-fatty acids (SCFA) production. Methods We performed next generation sequencing (NGS) of 16S rRNA and SCFA analysis on fecal samples of 23 overweight omnivores (16 F; 7 M) with low-to-moderate cardiovascular...

Introduction There is growing interest in understanding how diet can modulate the gut microbiota (GM), including its possible association with disease states. The aim of the present study is to compare in a group of subjects in primary prevention for cardiovascular disease (CVD) the effects of Mediterranean (MD) and Vegetarian (VD) dietary patterns...

The Tn antigen is a well-known tumor-associated carbohydrate determinant, often incorporated in glycopeptides to develop cancer vaccines. Herein, four copies of a conformationally constrained mimetic of the antigen TnThr (GalNAc-Thr) were conjugated to the adjuvant CRM197, a protein licensed for human use. The resulting vaccine candidate, mime[4]CR...

Background Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a widespread disease that represents an example of chronic inflammation-associated tumor. In fact, the immune system, besides protecting the host from developing tumors, can support the CRC progression. In this scenario, the gut microbiota (GM) is essential to modulate immune responses and a dysbiotic condition...

Evidence establishes that chronic inflammation and autoimmunity are associated with cancer development and patients with a primary malignancy may develop autoimmune-like diseases. Despite immune dysregulation is a common feature of both cancer and autoimmune diseases, precise mechanisms underlying this susceptibility are not clarified and different...

Background: An altered (dysbiosis) and unhealthy status of the gut microbiota is usually responsible for a reduction of short chain fatty acids (SCFAs) concentration. SCFAs obtained from the carbohydrate fermentation processes are crucial in maintaining gut homeostasis and their determination in stool samples could provide a faster, reliable and c...

Background and Rationale: Among the key players in the pathogenesis of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), microglia and T regulatory lymphocytes (Treg) are candidate cells for modifying the course of the disease. The gut microbiota (GM) acts by shaping immune tolerance and regulating the Treg number and suppressive function, besides circulating n...

The metabolites produced by the host's gut microbiota have an important role in the maintenance of intestinal homeostasis, but can also act as toxins and induce DNA damage in colorectal epithelial cells increasing the colorectal cancer (CRC) chance. In this scenario, the impact of some of the components of the natural human gastrointestinal microbi...

The worldwide epidemic of obesity has become an important public health issue, with serious psychological and social consequences. Obesity is a multifactorial disorder in which various elements (genetic, host, and environment), play a definite role, even if none of them satisfactorily explains its etiology. A number of neurological comorbidities, s...

In this study Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) was used to analyze and compare human microbiota from three different compartments, i.e., saliva, feces, and cancer tissue (CT), of a selected cohort of 10 Italian patients with colorectal cancer (CRC) vs. 10 healthy controls (saliva and feces). Furthermore, the Fusobacterium nucleatum abundance in the...

The study used next-generation sequencing (NGS) to analyze and compare human microbiota from three different environments, saliva, feces, and cancer tissue (CT), of a selected cohort of 10 Italian patients with colorectal cancer (CRC) vs. 10 healthy controls (saliva and feces). Furthermore, the Fusobacterium nucleatum (F. nucleatum) abundance in th...

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most common cancer worldwide, ranking as high as the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths in industrialized countries. Consistent with immunosurveillance theory, the immune system is crucial to protect the host from developing tumors, and the major players in tumoral immunity are effector T cells. Anywa...

Background: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths in Italy. The CRC aetiology has been linked to genetic mutation, diet, lifestyle, inflammation, and recently, the gut microbiota. However, CRC-associated microbiota is still largely not uncovered, especially after cancer remotion and probiotic/prebiotic adminis...

Pancreatic cancer (PC) still represents an unresolved therapeutic challenge due to the associated poor prognosis and the lack of responsiveness to current treatments. Surgery, followed by adjuvant therapy, is the only potentially curative treatment for PC; however, only 20% of PC patients have a potential resectable disease at diagnosis and the ove...

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is an aggressive disease with an average survival of 4-6 months following diagnosis. Surgical resection is the only treatment with curative intent, but resectable PDAC patients are in the minority. Also, unlike other neoplasms, PDAC is resistant to conventional and targeted chemotherapy. Innovative treatments...

To investigate novel colorectal cancer (CRC)-associated antigens that could be targets of humoral or cellular responses, we analyzed the reactivity of serum from a long-surviving CRC patient (for more than 100 months of follow-up) in clinical remission, by serologic proteome analysis. Two-dimensional Western blotting (2D-WB) and mass spectrometry a...

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is the 5th leading cause of cancer-related death. The causes of this cancer remain unknown but increasing evidence indicates a key role of the host immuneresponseand cytokines in human carcinogenesis. Intra-tumoral IL-22 levels have been shown to be elevated in PDAC patients.However,little is known regarding...

Deregulation of angiogenesis – the growth of new blood vessels from an existing vasculature – is a main driving force in many severe human diseases including cancer. As such, tumor angiogenesis is important for delivering oxygen and nutrients to growing tumors, and therefore considered an essential pathologic feature of cancer, while also playing a...

Cancer arises in the context of an in vivo tumor microenvironment. This microenvironment is both a cause and consequence of tumorigenesis. Tumor and host cells co-evolve dynamically through indirect and direct cellular interactions, eliciting multiscale effects on many biological programs, including cellular proliferation, growth, and metabolism, a...

Cancers harbor significant genetic heterogeneity and patterns of relapse following many therapies are due to evolved resistance to treatment. While efforts have been made to combine targeted therapies, significant levels of toxicity have stymied efforts to effectively treat cancer with multi-drug combinations using currently approved therapeutics....

Apoptosis or programmed cell death is natural way of removing aged cells from the body. Most of the anti-cancer therapies trigger apoptosis induction and related cell death networks to eliminate malignant cells. However, in cancer, de-regulated apoptotic signaling, particularly the activation of an anti-apoptotic systems, allows cancer cells to esc...

Targeted therapies and the consequent adoption of “personalized” oncology have achieved notable successes in some cancers; however, significant problems remain with this approach. Many targeted therapies are highly toxic, costs are extremely high, and most patients experience relapse after a few disease-free months. Relapses arise from genetic hete...

Genomic instability can initiate cancer, augment progression, and influence the overall prognosis of the affected patient. Genomic instability arises from many different pathways, such as telomere damage, centrosome amplification, epigenetic modifications, and DNA damage from endogenous and exogenous sources, and can be perpetuating, or limiting, t...

Proliferation is an important part of cancer development and progression. This is manifest by altered expression and/or activity of cell cycle related proteins. Constitutive activation of many signal transduction pathways also stimulates cell growth. Early steps in tumor development are associated with a fibrogenic response and the development of a...

One of the hallmarks of malignant cell populations is the ability to undergo continuous proliferation. This property allows clonal lineages to acquire sequential aberrations that can fuel increasingly autonomous growth, invasiveness, and therapeutic resistance. Innate cellular mechanisms have evolved to regulate replicative potential as a hedge aga...

Cancer is a key health issue across the world, causing substantial patient morbidity and mortality. Patient prognosis is tightly linked with metastatic dissemination of the disease to distant sites, with metastatic diseases accounting for a vast percentage of cancer patient mortality. Whilst advances in this area have been made, the process of canc...