Customer Profile: Dr. Giulio Agnetti
Dr. Agnetti currently works as a post-doctoral Research Fellow at the prestigious Hopkins Bayview Proteomics Centre (Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD) and is also affiliated with the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Bologna (Italy). He researches heart failure and cardiovascular proteomics together with Prof. Jennifer Van Eyk, who has a long-standing and successful track record within that area.
Read below for Dr. Agnetti's answers to our seven customer profile questions:
How would you describe the overall goal of your research?
Understanding why the heart goes to failure. Heart failure is the clinical end-stage, common to a number of cardiac conditions (myocardial infarction, valve defect, hypertension, etc.). Being a muscle, the heart compensates for these pathological stimuli by increasing its size, a process called hypertrophy. In the short term this is beneficial but in the long run the heart tends to dilate and ends up failing to pump blood efficiently. The molecular reasons that underly this maladaptive trend are unknown. We believe that proteomics could help identifying the molecular players that drive the heart to failure.
What is your goal specifically for your 2D gel based research?
To monitor changes in post-translational modifications status of candidate cardiac proteins.
What type of samples are you primarily working with?
Cardiac tissue from both human and animal models and primary cultures of cardiac myocytes
What have you achieved by using 2D gels?
We believe that we identified a common change (candidate marker) to several types of failure. This protein may represent the key-stone of the processes that regulate the disease. We identified the first reported phosphorylations of a our candidate protein in vivo, using human and canine specimens. This may lead to the development of novel concepts and targeted pharmacological treatments for heart failure.
What type of Ludesi analysis do you primarily use (REDFIN Solo, Basic, or Pro)?
All of the above!
What made you choose Ludesi's analysis service?
A friend and colleague compared different ways of analyzing 2D gels. Ludesi resulted in being the most reliable. Moreover, on top of saving a lot of time to researchers, the Ludesi analysis service is unbiased! This is particularly important when someone has a candidate marker.
How does using the analysis service help you in your work?
Saves me a lot of time, results are reliable, nicely organized, easily retrievable and editable. On top of resulting from an unbiased analysis!
Read more about Dr. Agnetti's work in some of his recent publications:
Modulation of mitochondrial proteome and improved mitochondrial function by biventricular pacing of dyssynchronous failing hearts.
Agnetti G, Kaludercic N, Kane LA, Elliott ST, Guo Y, Chakir K, Samantapudi D, Paolocci N, Tomaselli GF, Kass DA, Van Eyk JE.
Circ Cardiovasc Genet. 2010 Feb 1;3(1):78-87. Epub 2009 Nov 17.
Pubmed Link
Proteomic profiling of endothelin-1-stimulated hypertrophic cardiomyocytes reveals the increase of four different desmin species and alpha-B-crystallin.
Agnetti G, Bezstarosti K, Dekkers DH, Verhoeven AJ, Giordano E, Guarnieri C, Caldarera CM, Van Eyk JE, Lamers JM.
Biochim Biophys Acta. 2008 Jul-Aug;1784(7-8):1068-76. Epub 2008 Apr 18.
Pubmed Link
Proteomic technologies in the study of kinases: novel tools for the investigation of PKC in the heart.
Agnetti G, Kane LA, Guarnieri C, Caldarera CM, Van Eyk JE.
Pharmacol Res. 2007 Jun;55(6):511-22. Epub 2007 May 3. Review.
Pubmed Link
