DELEIDI LAB
"MITOCHONDRIA & INFLAMMATION IN NEURODEGENERATIVE DISEASES"
Overview of Our Research
The Deleidi Lab "Mitochondria & Inflammation in Neurodegenerative Diseases" is a research lab at the German Center for Neurodegenerative Disease (Tübingen). The lab was founded in 2016 in the framework of the Helmholtz Young Investigator Group program. Research in our laboratory concentrates on the molecular mechanisms of neurodegeneration, with a special emphasis on Parkinson's disease.
RESEARCH
Our research aims at studying how discrete genetic factors contribute to the development of neurological disorders, with a particular focus on Parkinson's disease (PD). To this end, we develop models with human pluripotent stem cells and long-term cultures of organoids combined with single cell-omics to identify the role of disease related genetic variants and validate targets with diagnostic and therapeutic potential.
THE INNATE IMMUNE SYSTEM IN NEURODEGENERATIVE DISEASES
Several genetic clues link inflammation to neurodegenerative diseases. With this respect, it is interesting to note that many disease-linked genes (in AD, ALS and PD) are highly expressed in a variety of immune cells. However, it remains unclear whether and how these variants promote inflammatory responses that influence actual disease risk. Our recent research has focused on the non-cell autonomous role of PD related genes; to investigate inflammatory and metabolic changes, we combine in vivo models with transgenic mice and in vitro systems, including patient blood cells as well as myeloid precursors and microglia differentiated from human iPSCs.
LYSOSOMAL BIOLOGY OF PARKINSON'S DISEASE
Lysosomal storage diseases (LSDs) are a group of rare, inherited, metabolic disorders caused by the deficiency of various lysosomal enzymes and the accumulation of their substrates. Most affect the brain, with variable manifestations, from mild adult-onset symptoms to severe neurodegeneration causing premature death. Interestingly, LSDs share pathological features with common neurodegenerative diseases. Thus, models of these rare conditions could greatly contribute to an enhanced understanding of more common neurodegenerative disorders, including PD and AD. Our research aims at investigating the risk/resilience factors of neuronopathic LSDs combining iPSC 2/3D models with single cell -omics.
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INFECTIONS, CHRONIC INFLAMMATORY DISEASES, AND NEURODEGENERATION
Certain mutations that modulate the risk for infections also contribute to an increased predisposition for developing neurodegenerative diseases. In the framework of this project, we are investigating how specific disease-related genetic traits can confer both susceptibility to infection and predisposition to neurodegeneration. The major goal of our research is to unravel unique and shared molecular pathways underlying inflammatory, infectious, and neurodegenerative diseases. To this end, we employ in vivo modeling, stem cell-derived organoids, and functional genomic approaches.
PEOPLE
Ana Ortiz Rodriguez
Postdoctoral Associate
Ana received her PhD in Molecular Biosciences at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (2019) working on the metabolic regulation of autophagy in astrocytes. She works on infection-related mechanisms and host-pathogen interaction in Parkinson's disease.
María José Pérez J.
Postdoctoral Fellow
María José received her PhD at the Universidad Autónoma de Chile (2018). In 2020, she received an EMBO LT fellowship to study the role of mitochondrial proteostasis using cerebral organoids and single-cell sequencing approaches.
Francesca Provenzano
Postdoctoral associate
Francesca completed her PhD at the university of Genova. She works on the role of immune cell metabolism in ALS using iPSCs and cerebral organoids.
Christin Weissleder
Postdoctoral Associate
Christin obtained her PhD in 2019 from the University of New South Wales in Sydney. She joined the group in 2021 to study the role of the microbiome in inflammation and alpha-synuclein pathology using iPSC-derived immune cells and organoids.
Federico Bertoli
Research Assistant
Federico received his master's degree in Neurobiology at the University of Rome "La Sapienza". He joined our group in 2021 as a research assistant to work on the gut-brain link in GBA1 neurodegeneration
Hariam Raji
Research Assistant
Hariam received his master degree at the University of Wuerzburg. He joined our lab in 2021 as a research assistant to work on brain organoid development/models.
Fokion Spanos
Doctoral candidate
Fokion received his master degree in Molecular Neuroscience at the University of Amsterdam in 2020. He joined the lab as a doctoral candidate to work on the role of the gut microbiome in GBA1 neurodegeneration.
Stefanie Kalb
Lab Manager
Stefanie completed her studies at the KIT and joined our group in 2019. She is providing technical assistance for all the on-going projects and ensuring the smooth running of the lab.
Marika Mearelli
Research Assistant
Marika received her master degree at University of Trieste under the supervision of Giuseppe Legname. She joined our lab in 2020 as a research assistant mostly focusing on infection model systems.
Michela Deleidi
Group Leader
Michela obtained her MD and clinical training in Neurology at Vita-Salute San Raffaele Scientific Institute in Milan. Afterwards, she worked at Harvard Medical School where she focused on the molecular mechanisms of neurodegeneration in Parkinson's disease (PD) and the use of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) for disease modeling and regenerative medicine applications. She is an Helmholtz Investigator Group Leader at the DZNE Tübingen and Assistant Professor of Neurology at the University of Tübingen. Her research aims at tackling the cell type-specific effect of genetic variants involved in both sporadic and genetic PD, with a focus on the role of innate immunity as an early trigger of PD.
ALUMNI
Pascale Baden, PhD student 2016-2021
Claudio Giuliano, visiting PhD student from University of Pavia
Marvin Oldrati, Erasmus student 2019-2020, now PhD student at University of Ulm
Vasiliki Panagiotakopoulou, Postdoctoral fellow 2017-2021, now postdoc at Hertie Institute
Daria Messelodi, visiting PhD student 2019-2020, now postdoc at University of Bologna
Silvia De Cicco, PhD student 2016-2020, now postdoctoral associate at BioMed X, Heidelberg.
Dina Ivanyuk, PhD student and Postdoctoral fellow 2016-2020
David Schöndorf, PhD student 2016-2019, now senior scientist at Abbvie.
Benedikt Hölbling, Master in Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience 2018, now PhD student at DRI UCL, London.
Vasileios Kampanis, Master in Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience 2017, now PhD student at University of Heidelberg.
Lukas Kristoffer Schwarz, research assistant, now Senior Technician of Immunology/uniQure Amsterdam.
PUBLISHED WORK
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Kedariti M, Frattini E, Baden P, Cogo S, Civiero L, Ziviani E, Kaganovich A, Cookson MR, Stefanis L, Alcalay R, Deleidi M, di Fonzo A, Rideout H, Greggio E, Plotegher N. “The activities of LRRK2 and GCase are positively correlated in clinical biospecimens and experimental models of Parkinson’s disease”. BioRxiv: doi.org/10.1101/2021.09.27.461935.
Merle DA, Provenzano F, Jarboui MA, Kilger E, Clark SJ, Deleidi M, Armento A, Ueffing M. ”mTOR inhibition via Rapamycin treatment partially reverts the deficit in energy metabolism caused by FH loss in RPE cells”. Antioxidants, 2021 doi.org/10.1101/2021.10.29.466270
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Brunetti D, Catania A, Viscomi C, Deleidi M, Bindoff LA, Ghezzi D, Zeviani M. “Role of PITRM1 in Mitochondrial Dysfunction and Neurodegeneration”. Review, Biomedicines. 2021, doi: 10.3390/biomedicines9070833.
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Provenzano F and Deleidi M*. “Reassessing antagonistic pleiotropy to unravel infectious and brain diseases”. Trends Neurosci. 2021 Jul 17:S0166-2236(21)00118-1. doi: 10.1016/j.tins.2021.06.006.
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Pérez MJ, Baden P, Deleidi M*. “Progresses in both basic research and clinical trials of NAD+ in Parkinson's disease”. Review. Mech Ageing Dev 2021 May 11;197:111499. doi: 10.1016/j.mad.2021.111499.
Panagiotakopoulou V, De Cicco S, Ivanyuk D, Haq W, Arsic A, Yu C, Messelodi D, Oldrati M, Schöndorf DC, Perez MJ, Cassatella RP, Jacobi M, Schneiderhan-Marra N, Nikic I, Gasser T, Deleidi M*. " Interferon-γ signaling synergizes with LRRK2 in human neurons and microglia". Nat Commun. 2020 Oct 14;11(1):5163. doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-18755-4.
Perez MJ, Provenzano F, Deleidi M*. "Redefining microglial identity in health and disease at single-cell resolution". Review, Trends in Molecular Medicine. 2020 Sep 29:S1471-4914(20)30218-5.
Ivanyuk D, Perez MJ, Panagiotakopoulou V, Di Napoli G, Brunetti D, Al-Shaana R, Kaeser S, Jucker M, Zeviani M, Viscomi C, Deleidi M*. "Loss of function of the mitochondrial peptidase PITRM1 induces proteotoxic stress and Alzheimer’s disease-like pathology in human cerebral organoids". Mol Psychiatry. 2020 Jul 7. doi: 10.1038/s41380-020-0807-4.
Armento A, Honisch S, Panagiotakopoulou V, Sonntag I, Jacob A, Kilger E, Deleidi M, Clark S, Ueffing M. "Loss of Complement Factor H impairs antioxidant capacity and energy metabolism of human RPE cells". Sci Rep. 2020 Jun 25;10(1):10320. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-67292-z.
P. Baden, C. Yu, M. Deleidi*. "Insights into GBA Parkinson's disease pathology and therapy with induced pluripotent stem cell model systems". Review. Neurobiology of Disease. 2019 Jan 31. pii: S0969-9961(19)30032-4. doi: 10.1016/j.nbd.2019.01.023.
Compagnoni GM, Kleiner G, Samarani M, Aureli M, Faustini G, Bellucci A, Ronchi D, Bordoni A, Garbellini M, Salani S, Fortunato F, Frattini E, Abati E, Bergamini C, Fato R, Tabano S, Miozzo M, Serratto G, Passafaro M, Deleidi M, Silipigni R, Nizzardo M, Bresolin N, Comi GP, Corti S, Quinzii CM, Di Fonzo A. "Impaired autophagy and mitochondrial dysfunction in iPSC-derived dopaminergic neurons of Multiple System Atrophy". Stem Cell Rep.2018 Nov 13;11(5):1185-1198. doi: 10.1016/j.stemcr.2018.09.007.
Schöndorf DC, Ivaniuk D, Sanchez-Martinez A, Giunta I, Yu C, De Cicco S, Schwarz LK, Nestel S, Keatinge M, Pruszak J, Bandmann O, Heimrich B, Gasser T, Whitworth AJ, Deleidi M. "Nicotinamide riboside rescues mitochondrial defects and neurodegeneration in iPSC and fly models of Parkinson’s disease". Cell Rep.2018 Jun 5;23(10):2976-2988. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2018.05.009.
Marrone L, Bus C, Schöndorf D, Fitzgerald F, Kübler M, Schmid B, Reinhardt P, Deleidi M, Levin T, Meixner A, Klink B, Glatza M, Gloeckner CJ, Gasser T, Sterneckert J. "Generation of iPSCs stratified for a common LRRK2 risk allele for in vitro modeling of idiopathic Parkinson's disease". PLoS One. 2018 Mar 7;13(3):e0192497. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0192497.
Straniero L, Soldà G, Rimoldi V, Samarani M, Goldwurm S, Di Fonzo A, Kruger R, Deleidi M, Aureli M, Duga S, Asselta R. "The GBAP1 pseudogene acts as a competing endogenous RNA for the Parkinson-related gene GBA by sponging miR-22-3p". Sci Rep. 2017 Oct 5;7(1):12702. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-12973-5.
Khurana V, Peng J, Chung CY, Auluck PK, Fanning S, Tardiff DF, Bartels T, Koeva M, Eichhorn SW, Benyamini H, Lou Y, Nutter-Upham A, Baru V, Freyzon Y, Tuncbag N, Costanzo M, San Luis BJ, Schöndorf DC, Barrasa MI, Ehsani S, Sanjana N, Zhong Q, Gasser T, Bartel DP, Vidal M, Deleidi M, Boone C, Fraenkel E, Berger B, Lindquist S. "Genome-scale networks link neurodegenerative disease genes to alpha-synuclein through specific molecular pathways". Cell Syst. 2017 Jan 25. pii: S2405-4712(16)30445-8.
Deleidi M*, Yu C. Genome editing in pluripotent stem cells: research and therapeutic applications. Biochem Biophys Res Commun.2016 Feb 27.
Baden P, Deleidi M. Mitochondrial Antigen Presentation: A vacuolar Path to Autoimmunity in Parkinson's Disease. Trends Immunol.2016 Nov;37(11):719-721. doi: 10.1016/j.it.2016.08.016.
Hallett PJ, Deleidi M, Astradsson A, Smith GA, Cooper O, Osborn TM, Sundberg M, Moore MA, Perez-Torres E, Brownell AL, Schumacher JM, Spealman RD, Isacson O. "Successful Function of Autologous iPSC-Derived Dopamine Neurons following Transplantation in a Non-Human Primate Model of Parkinson's Disease". Cell Stem Cell.2015 Mar 5;16(3):269-74.
Deleidi M*, Jäggle M and Rubino R. "Immune ageing, dysmetabolism and inflammation in neurological diseases". Front Neurosci. 2015 Jun 3;9:172.
Orack JC, Deleidi M, Pitt D, Mahajan K, Nicholas JA, Boster AL, Racke MK, Comabella M, Watanabe F, Imitola J. "Modeling Multiple Sclerosis with Stem Cell Biological Platforms: Toward functional validation of cellular and molecular phenotypes". Stem Cells Transl Med. 2015 Jan 15. pii: sctm.2014-0133.
Schöndorf DC, Aureli M, McAllister FE, Hindley CJ, Mayer F, Schmid B, Sardi SP, Valsecchi M, Hoffmann S, Schwarz LK, Hedrich U, Berg D, Shihabuddin LS, Hu J, Pruszak J, Gygi SP, Sonnino S, Gasser T*, Deleidi M*. "iPSC-derived neurons from GBA1-associated Parkinson's disease patients show autophagic defects and impaired calcium homeostasis". Nat Commun.2014 Jun 6;5:4028. * Corresponding author.
Turaç G, Hindley CJ, Thomas R, Davis JA, Deleidi M, Gasser T, Karaöz E, Pruszak J. "Combined Flow Cytometric Analysis of Surface and Intracellular Antigens Reveals Surface Molecule Markers of Human Neuropoiesis". Plos One. 2013 Jun 24;8(6):e68519.
Get in touch to learn more.
AVAILABLE POSITIONS
We are seeking highly motivated basic researchers and clinician scientists at all stages of their careers. If you are excited about our research send your application to Dr. Michela Deleidi at michela.deleidi@dzne.de
In your email, include the following items:
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CV
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Cover letter including a short summary of your research interests and major achievements
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A list of three contact references
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Postdoctoral Researcher in Human Brain Organoids and Neurodegeneration
We are seeking highly motivated, successful, and creative individual(s) with a background in neuroscience, stem cell biology, and (neuro)-immunology.The successful applicant will work in a highly stimulating environment to pursue an exciting visionary cross-disciplinary project aimed at unraveling neuro-immune interactions in Parkinson's disease by means of patient stem cell-derived organoids. The study will involve wide range of techniques including stem cell culture, microglia differentiation, organoid generation, and scRNA sequencing. The candidate will have the opportunity to grow independently and get involved in other exciting projects, including developments of chimeric mouse models with human neurons, and glial cells; development of stem cell based therapies for degenerative disease and brain regeneration studies.
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The ideal candidate should have:
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Ph.D. and/or M.D. or equivalent degree in neuroscience, biology or any related field
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Outstanding record of achievements from prior training
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Excellent communication and interpersonal skills
The successful candidate should have prior experience in at least two of the following scientific fields:
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Stem cell biology in particular experience using induced pluripotent stem cells and organoids
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Immunology
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Next-generation sequencing and bioinformatics
To apply, please email your CV and a cover letter summarizing your research experience and interest along with the contact information of three references to: Michela Deleidi (michela.deleidi@dzne.de)
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Research Assistant
We look for a highly enthusiastic and manually skilled research technician to participate in our research toward understanding the pathogenic mechanisms of gene mutations in the pathogenesis of Parkinson' s disease by using induced pluripotent stem cells. The successful candidate should have prior experience in mammalian cell culture and molecular biology techniques. The individual will perform a variety of techniques that are necessary to generate, maintain and differentiate human induced pluripotent stem cells and perform gene editing in human stem cells. This will include the culture of mammalian cells, virus production, immunocytochemistry, western blotting, molecular cloning, PCR and confocal imaging. We have build state-of-the-art molecular and cell biological facilities including imaging, genome, and transcriptome sequencing possibilities. Essential qualities required include good organizational skills, fluency in English, a strong team spirit and time management skills.
Applications including motivation letter, CV, publication list (if applicable) and two recommendation letters or references should be sent to the contact person, Michela Deleidi (michela.deleidi@dzne.de)