Muscle-Nerve Communication Unit
We study the communication between muscle and nerve. Te main objective of our project is to characterize the molecular mechanisms underpinning the defect of communication between skeletal muscle and nervous tissue. In particular we investigate the role skeletal muscle in the pathogenesis of a neuromuscular disease, named Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). We focus on the effects of localized accumulation of oxidative stress in muscle-nerve cross-talk in physiological and pathological condition and on the metabolic and circadian changes associated with muscle denervation in ALS disease. More recently, our scientific activity was centred on the study of the effect of pharmacological approaches to stabilize the neuromuscular junction or to attenuate oxidative stress using the antisense oligonucleotide technology. The achievement of our project will allow us to design new therapeutic approaches to preserve the heterogeneity and the architecture of the NMJ in pathological conditions like the ALS.
