Extracellular Microenvironment
Extracellular Microenvironment
The focus of the research team is on the role that the extracellular microenvironments play on the onset and progression of urological diseases, such as bladder cancer and male infertility.
Research activity
From a perspective point of view, the identification of changes that occur in the biochemical, physical and 3D ultrastructural characteristics of the extracellular matrix associated with diseased tissues will support the identification of new extracellular targets for the delivery of more targeted interventions, as well as the identification of upstream paths to design innovative therapeutic strategies.
In the same way, the characterization of the microbiome associated with the tissues represents the second microenvironment studied, which will allow to identify therapeutic strategies for the engagement of prebiotic and / or probiotic therapies in pathological conditions.
The group has a strong translational focus and collaborates with several national and international researchers with different scientific skills to achieve an integrated vision of the disease. The scientific research of the group is supported by peer-reviewed competitive grants and industrial sponsors:
Ean H. Ooi*, Viktor Popov, Massimo Alfano* & Jason K. K. Cheong. Influence of natural convection inside the bladder during gold nanorods-assisted photothermal treatment of bladder cancer in mice. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HYPERTHERMIA, 2020, VOL. 37, NO. 1, 634–650. *Corresponding author.
Chipollini et al. Alfano M*, Pederzoli F, Bandini M, Necchi A. The new era of precision urobiome: RE: "Characterization of urinary microbiome in patients with bladder cancer: Results from a single-institution, feasibility study". Urol Oncol. 2020 Jul 16:S1078-1439(20)30299-4. doi: 10.1016/j.urolonc.2020.06.029. Corresponding author.
Filippo Pederzoli, Roberto Ferrarese, Virginia Amato, Irene Locatelli, Elisa Alchera, Roberta Lucianò, Manuela Nebuloni, Alberto Briganti, Andrea Gallina, Renzo Colombo, Andrea Necchi, Massimo Clementi, Francesco Montorsi, Nicasio Mancini, Andrea Salonia, Massimo Alfano. Sex specific alterations in the urinary and tissue microbiome in therapy naïve urothelial bladder cancer patients. European Urology Oncology. Epub April 25, 2020. PMID: 32345542.
Boeri L, Pederzoli F, Capogrosso P, Abbate C, Alfano M, Mancini N, Clementi M, Montanari E, Montorsi F, Salonia A. Semen infections in men with primary infertility in the real-life setting. Fertil Steril. 2020 Jun;113(6):1174-1182. doi: 10.1016/j.fertnstert.2020.01.034.
Cazzaniga W, Ventimiglia E, Alfano M, Robinson D, Lissbrant IF, Carlsson S, Styrke J, Montorsi F, Salonia A, Stattin P. Mini Review on the Use of Clinical Cancer Registers for Prostate Cancer: The National Prostate Cancer Register (NPCR) of Sweden. Front Med (Lausanne). 2019 Mar 22;6:51. doi: 10.3389/fmed.2019.00051. eCollection 2019.
Elisa Lenti, Silvia Bianchessi, Steven T. Proulx, Maria Teresa Palano, Luca Genovese, Laura Raccosta, Antonello Spinelli, Denise Drago, Annapaola Andolfo, Massimo Alfano, Tatiana V. Petrova, Sylvain Mukenge, Vincenzo Russo, and Andrea Brendolan. Therapeutic Regeneration of Lymphatic and Immune Cell Functions upon Lympho-organoid Transplantation. Stem Cell Reports, Vol. 12, 1–9, June 11, 2019, PMID: 31155505.
Alfano M*., Pederzoli F., Ippolito S., Longhi E., Zerbi P., Ferrari M., Brendolan A., Montorsi F. Denis D., Andolfo A, Nebuloni M., Salonia A. Impaired testicular signaling of vitamin A and vitamin K contributes to the aberrant composition extracellular matrix in idiopathic germ cell aplasia. Fertil Steril. 2019 Apr;111(4):687-698. PMID: 30929729. *Corresponding author.
Massimo Alfano*, Roberto Ferrarese, Irene Locatelli, Eugenio Ventimiglia, Silvia Ippolito, Pierangela Gallina, Daniela Cesana, Filippo Canducci, Luca Pagliardini, Paola Viganò, Massimo Clementi, Manuela Nebuloni, Francesco Montorsi, Andrea Salonia. Testicular microbiome in azoospermic men – First evidence of the impact of an altered microenvironment. Hum Reprod. 2018 Jul 1;33(7):1212-1217. PMID: 29850857. *Corresponding author.
Massimo Alfano, Eugenio Ventimiglia, Irene Locatelli, Paolo Capogrosso, Walter Cazzaniga, Filippo Pederzoli, Nicola Frego, Rayan Matloob, Antonino Saccà, Luca Pagliardini, Paola Viganò, Pietro Zerbi, Manuela Nebuloni, Marina Pontillo, Francesco Montorsi, Andrea Salonia. Anti-mullerian hormone-to-testosterone ratio is predictive of positive sperm retrieval in men with idiopathic non-obstructive azoospermia. Scientific Reports Dec 2017; 7: 17638. PMID: 29247212.
Alfano M*, Nebuloni M, Allevi R, Zerbi P, Longhi E, Lucianò R, Locatelli I, Pecoraro A, Indrieri M, Speziali C, Doglioni C, Milani P, Montorsi F, Salonia A. Linearized texture of three-dimensional extracellular matrix is mandatory for bladder cancer cell invasion. Sci Rep. 2016 Oct 25;6:36128. PMID:27779205. *Corresponding author.
Walter Cazzaniga, Manuela Nebuloni, Erika Longhi, Irene Locatelli, Raffaele Allevi, Roberta Lucianò, Gelsomina Senatore, Eugenio Ventimiglia, Vito Cucchiara, Luca Genovese, Francesco Montorsi, Massimo Alfano, Andrea Salonia, Ilaria Cavarretta. Human prostate derived extracellular matrix as a model of prostate microenvironment. European Urology Focus 2016; 2(4):400–408. PMID: 28723472.
Massimo Alfano, Filippo Canducci, Manuela Nebuloni, Francesco Montorsi, Andrea Salonia. The interplay of extracellular matrix and microbiome in urothelial bladder cancer. Review. Nature Reviews Urology. 2016 Feb;13(2):77-90. PMID: 26666363.
Manuela Nebuloni, Luca Albarello, Annapaola Andolfo, Cinzia Magagnotti, Luca Genovese, Irene Locatelli, Giovanni Tonon, Erika Longhi, Pietro Zerbi, Raffaele Allevi, Alessandro Podestà, Luca Puricelli, Paolo Milani, Armando Soldarini, Andrea Salonia, Massimo Alfano*. Insight on colorectal carcinoma infiltration by studying perilesional extracellular matrix. Scientific Reports 2016 Mar 4;6:22522. PMID: 26940881. *Corresponding author.
Alfano M, Cinque P, Giusti G, Proietti S, Nebuloni M, Danese S, D'Alessio S, Genua M, Portale F, Lo Porto M, Singhal PC, Rastaldi MP, Saleem MA, Mavilio D, Mikulak J. Full-length soluble urokinase plasminogen activator receptor down-modulates nephrin expression in podocytes. Sci Rep. 2015 Sep 18;5:13647. PMID: 26380915.
Luca Genovese, Lidia Zawada, Antonella Tosoni, Angelita Ferri, Pietro Zerbi, Manuela Nebuloni, Massimo Alfano*. Cellular Localization, Invasion and Turnover Are Differently Influenced by Healthy and Tumor Derived Extracellular Matrix. Tissue Eng Part A. 2014 Jul;20(13-14):2005-18. Epub 2014 Mar. PMID: 24498848. *Corresponding author.