Research themes
Repurposing of viral properties and functions: The unique viruses’ life cycle is tightly entangled to the molecular machinery of their hosts. This intimate and absolute dependency drives their unmatched efficiency and promotes an enormous functional biodiversity that can be repurposed in several ways. Active areas of investigation include viruses “domestication”, for their use as targeted and selective anti-cancer tools (oncolytic viruses, Menotti, 2020a ; Menotti, 2020b), and the exploitation of viral functions to create novel activities with therapeutical potential (i.e. control of molecular mechanisms leading to neurocognitive decline (Brandimarti 2017).
Viral evolution dynamics: Viruses evolve at a higher rate as compared to their host(s). Specific properties of the different viral replicative strategies and host-parasite interactions can drive or push viral evolution. Even viruses considered to be substantially stable can change, under selective pressure. The aim of the research is to follow, by means of molecular tools, in vitro viral evolution and to dissect the conditions which promote it.
Infection: The earliest events during infection are the encounter of bacteria and viruses with the innate and acquired immune response mechanisms and only exceptionally specific events occur which then will lead to localised or invasive infection. We have recently discovered that one such event is the replication of certain bacteria within tissue resident macrophages in the spleen (Ercoli 2018) and liver (Wanford 2021) (see 3D video of infected cell). The understanding of the molecular and cellular details in this interaction are predicted to provide novel approaches for prevention and treatment of infectious diseases (Carreno 2021).
Microbial epigenetics: The study of population dynamics in the host during carriage and infection have let us to discover processes of rapid phase variable mechanisms for epigenetic changes which change gene expression (Manso 2014). These phase variable methylation systems are present in many bacterial species (De Ste Croix 2017) and represent a novel model to investigate the molecular mechanisms of epigenetic gene regulation in procaryotes.