Glycolipids are primary metabolites present in all living organisms and characterized by interesting biological properties. In recent years, glycoglycerolipids and ceramides have attracted particular interest as either agonists of cellular receptors, e.g. Toll-Like Receptors (TLRs) and MHC-related glycoproteins of the CD1 family, or chemical entities for the development of anti-tumoral and...
Single-Crystal X-Ray Diffraction (SCXRD) is a powerful non-destructive analytical technique commonly considered as the main tool for the structural characterization of crystalline materials at the atomic level. For this reason, SCXRD is very useful for a wide range of disciplines such as chemistry, biology, materials science, or pharmacology in both academic and industrial settings.
The...
Neuroinflammation and chronic activation of the innate immune response are associated with the early onset of neurodegenerative diseases. The finding that obesity and metabolic disorder are accompanied by chronic low-grade inflammation, astrogliosis, and the release of pro-inflammatory cytokines, has fundamentally changed our approach to the underlying early causes of neurodegenerative...
Steroid hormones act via specific receptors that activate gene transcription; hydroxysteroid dehydrogenases (HSDs) are responsible for pre-receptor regulation of steroid hormone activity. Indeed, 17$\beta$ hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (17$\beta$-HSD) modulate the biological potency of estrogens and androgens by reducing the (inactive) keto-form or oxidizing the (active) hydroxy-form at...
Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy has long emerged as a powerful tool for understanding metabolic process in living systems. Over the last decade, metabolomics has been considered as a well-established approach to elucidate metabolism and its mechanism. Formally defined as “the quantitative measurement of the multi-parametric metabolic response of living systems to...
The self-assembling of the amyloid β (Aβ) peptide into neurotoxic aggregates is considered a central event in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). Based on the “amyloid hypothesis” much efforts have been devoted in designing molecules able to halt disease progression by inhibiting Aβ self-assembly. By combining biophysical, biochemical and computational techniques, we investigated the...
