NON-COMMUNICABLE DISEASES / Immunology
Research Interests
Cancer induced immune suppression, intracellular trafficking of endosomal innate sensors and type-I interferon production in myeloid cells.
Description of Research
The lab focus is on cell biology of phagocytes and antigen presenting cells in healthy conditions and in pathological conditions like cancer and immune dysregulation. A major research line is dedicated to understanding how tumors cripple antigen presentation and myeloid functions in tissues. A second research line is dedicated to study cytoskeletal remodeling in phagocytes and its impact on innate signaling pathway using Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome as a disease model.
The lab also runs one of ICGEB’s Core Facilities: flow cytometry.
The Group recently made an important contribution to understanding the acquisition of tumour antigens by dendritic cells in lung tumours (Caronni N. et, al Nat Commun 2021), and to unravelling the cytoskeletal control of the cGAS-STING pathway (Amadio R. et al, Frontiers in Immunology, 2021).
Recent Publications
Bugatti M, Bergamini M, Missale F, Monti M, Laura A, Pezzali I, Picinoli S, Caronni N, Missolo-Koussou Y, Helft J, Benvenuti F, Vermi W. “A population of TIM4+FOLR2+ macrophages localized in tertiary lymphoid structures correlates to an active immune infiltrate across several cancer types”. Cancer Immunol Res. 2022 Sep 19:CIR-22-0271. doi: 10.1158/2326-6066.CIR-22-0271. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 36122412.
Simoncello F, Piperno GM, Caronni N, Amadio R, Cappelletto A, Canarutto G, Piazza S, Bicciato S, Benvenuti F. “CXCL5-mediated accumulation of mature neutrophils in lung cancer tissues impairs the differentiation program of anticancer CD8 T cells and limits the efficacy of checkpoint inhibitors”. Oncoimmunology. 2022 Apr 7;11(1):2059876. doi: 10.1080/2162402X.2022.2059876. PMID: 35402081; PMCID: PMC8993093.
Caronni N, Piperno GM, Simoncello F, Romano O, Vodret S, Yanagihashi Y, Dress R, Dutertre CA, Bugatti M, Bourdeley P, Del Prete A, Schioppa T, Mazza EMC, Collavin L, Zacchigna S, Ostuni R, Guermonprez P, Vermi W, Ginhoux F, Bicciato S, Nagata S, Benvenuti F. “TIM4 expression by dendritic cells mediates uptake of tumor-associated antigens and anti-tumor responses”. Nat Commun. 2021 Apr 14;12(1):2237. doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-22535-z. PMID: 33854047; PMCID: PMC8046802.
Piperno, G.M., Naseem, A., Silvestrelli, G., Amadio, R., Caronni, N., Cervantes-Luevano, K.E., Liv, N., Klumperman, J., Colliva, A., Ali, H., Graziano, F., Benaroch, P., Haecker, H., Hanna, R.N., Benvenuti, F. 2020. Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome protein restricts cGAS/STING activation by dsDNA immune complexes. JCI insight. DOI: 10.1172/jci.insight.132857
Cervantes-Luevano, K.E., Caronni, N., Castiello, M.C., Fontana, E., Piperno, G., Naseem, A., Uva, P., Bosticardo, M., Marcovecchio, G.E., Notarangelo, L.D., Cicalese, M.P., Aiuti, A., Villa, A., Benvenuti, F. 2018. Neutrophils drive type-I interferon production and autoantibodiesin Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome. J Allergy Clin Immunol pii:S0091-6749(18)30207-0. doi: 10.1016/j.jaci.2017.11.063. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed link
Caronni, N., Simoncello, F., Stafetta, F., Guarnaccia, C., Ruiz-Moreno, J.S., Opitz, B., Galli, T., Proux-Gillardeaux, V., Benvenuti, F. 2017. Downregulation of membrane trafficking proteins and lactate conditioning determine loss of dendritic cell function in lung cancer. Cancer Res. 2018 Jan 23. pii: canres.1307.2017. doi:
10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-17-1307. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed link