Prof. Gianluca Santamaria

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Academic Career Length

13Years (2014-Present)

(Calculated once Scilit publication data is synced: current year − year of first publication + 1)

Representative Publications

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27 January 2020 in Nature Medicine

Journal Article

Somatic gene editing ameliorates skeletal and cardiac muscle failure in pig and human models of Duchenne muscular dystrophy

L. Fonteyne

P. Hoppmann

+38

16 September 2014 in Oncotarget

Journal Article

RNA sequencing identifies specific PIWI-interacting small non-coding RNA expression patterns in breast cancer

Adnan Hashim

Giovanna Marchese

PIWI-interacting small non-coding RNAs (piRNAs) are genetic and epigenetic regulatory factors in germline cells, where they maintain genome stability, are involved in RNA silencing and regulate gene expression. We found that the piRNA biogenesis and effector pathway are present in human breast cancer (BC) cells and, analyzing smallRNA-Seq data generated from BC cell lines and tumor biopsies, we identified >100 BC piRNAs, including some very abundant and/or differentially expressed in mammary epithelial compared to BC cells, where this was influenced by estrogen or estrogen receptor β, and in cancer respect to normal breast tissues. A search for mRNAs targeted by the BC piRNome revealed that eight piRNAs showing a specific expression pattern in breast tumors target key cancer cell pathways. Evidence of an active piRNA pathway in BC suggests that these small non-coding RNAs do exert transcriptional and post-transcriptional gene regulatory actions also in cancer cells.

1 June 2014 in Molecular Therapy

Journal Article

Multifunctional Aptamer-miRNA Conjugates for Targeted Cancer Therapy

Carla Lucia Esposito

Laura Cerchia

Silvia Catuogno

Gennaro De Vita

Justin P Dassie

Vittorio de Franciscis

While microRNAs (miRNAs) clearly regulate multiple pathways integral to disease development and progression, the lack of safe and reliable means for specific delivery of miRNAs to target tissues represents a major obstacle to their broad therapeutic application. Our objective was to explore the use of nucleic acid aptamers as carriers for cell-targeted delivery of a miRNA with tumor suppressor function, let-7g. Using an aptamer that binds to and antagonizes the oncogenic receptor tyrosine kinase Axl (GL21.T), here we describe the development of aptamer-miRNA conjugates as multifunctional molecules that inhibit the growth of Axl-expressing tumors. We conjugated the let-7g miRNA to GL21.T and demonstrate selective delivery to target cells, processing by the RNA interference machinery, and silencing of let-7g target genes. Importantly, the multifunctional conjugate reduced tumor growth in a xenograft model of lung adenocarcinoma. Therefore, our data establish aptamer-miRNA conjugates as a novel tool for targeted delivery of miRNAs with therapeutic potential.

14 February 2019 in RSC Advances

Journal Article

Development of 3D PVA scaffolds for cardiac tissue engineering and cell screening applications

Elisabetta Dattola

Elvira Immacolata Parrotta

Stefania Scalise

Gerardo Perozziello

Tania Limongi

Giovanni Cuda

The aim of this study was the design of a 3D scaffold composed of poly(vinyl) alcohol (PVA) for cardiac tissue engineering (CTE) applications.

3 April 2023 in Nature Biotechnology

Journal Article

Epicardioid single-cell genomics uncovers principles of human epicardium biology in heart development and disease

Anna B. Meier

Dorota Zawada

Maria Teresa De Angelis

Laura D. Martens

Gianluca Santamaria

Alessandra Moretti

+14

The epicardium, the mesothelial envelope of the vertebrate heart, is the source of multiple cardiac cell lineages during embryonic development and provides signals that are essential to myocardial growth and repair. Here we generate self-organizing human pluripotent stem cell-derived epicardioids that display retinoic acid-dependent morphological, molecular and functional patterning of the epicardium and myocardium typical of the left ventricular wall. By combining lineage tracing, single-cell transcriptomics and chromatin accessibility profiling, we describe the specification and differentiation process of different cell lineages in epicardioids and draw comparisons to human fetal development at the transcriptional and morphological levels. We then use epicardioids to investigate the functional cross-talk between cardiac cell types, gaining new insights into the role of IGF2/IGF1R and NRP2 signaling in human cardiogenesis. Finally, we show that epicardioids mimic the multicellular pathogenesis of congenital or stress-induced hypertrophy and fibrotic remodeling. As such, epicardioids offer a unique testing ground of epicardial activity in heart development, disease and regeneration.

5 April 2019 in Scientific Reports

Journal Article

MicroRNA let-7g acts as tumor suppressor and predictive biomarker for chemoresistance in human epithelial ovarian cancer

Flavia Biamonte

Gianluca Santamaria

Alessandro Sacco

Francesca Marta Perrone

Annalisa Di Cello

Francesco Costanzo

Remarkable deregulation of microRNAs has been demonstrated in epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC). In particular, some of the let-7 miRNA family members have been proposed as tumor suppressors. Here, we explored the functional roles of let-7g in EOC. The ectopic overexpression of let-7g in OVCAR3 and HEY-A8 EOC cells induced i) a down-regulation of c-Myc and cyclin-D2 thus promoting cell cycle arrest, ii) a reduction of Vimentin, Snail and Slug thus counteracting the progression of epithelial to mesenchymal transition, iii) a chemosensitization to cis-platinum treatment. Next, analysis of human EOC tissues revealed that let-7g expression was significantly reduced in tumor tissue specimens of patients with EOC compared to their non-tumor counterparts (p = 0.0002). Notably, low let-7g tissue levels were significantly associated with acquired chemoresistance of patients with late-stage of EOC (n = 17, p = 0.03194). This finding was further validated in the serum samples collected from the same cohort of patients (n = 17, p = 0.003). To conclude, we demonstrate that let-7g acts as tumor suppressor and might be used to disable EOC tumor progression and chemoresistance to cis-platinum-based chemotherapy. Furthermore, we propose that decreased expression of let-7g could serve as a tissue and serum biomarker able to predict the chemo-resistant features of EOC patients.

About Me

Gianluca Santamaria, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Pathology (MEDS-02/A) at the University “Magna Graecia” of Catanzaro, Italy. He earned his PhD in Bioinformatics from the University of Sannio, Benevento, in collaboration with the Stazione Zoologica “Anton Dohrn” in Naples. His academic path includes advanced training in genetic and medical biotechnology as well as an Erasmus research experience at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Prof. Santamaria’s research integrates bioinformatics, molecular cardiology, oncology, and stem cell biology. His work focuses on the molecular and cellular mechanisms driving cardiovascular development and disease, tumor progression, and epigenetic regulation. He has made significant contributions to the understanding of cardiac progenitor specification, transcriptomic and single-cell multi-omics data integration, and the development of targeted therapeutic strategies. He has held research appointments at leading institutions including the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg and the Technical University of Munich (TUM), where he led bioinformatics research groups in cardiology. He has been a key investigator in national and international research projects, securing competitive grants such as PRIN (Italy’s Progetti di Rilevante Interesse Nazionale) and awards from the Fondazione Umberto Veronesi and Care4Rare Foundation.

Prof. Gianluca Santamaria

Prof. Gianluca Santamaria

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