Guest seminar: Professor Susanna Fagerholm
Guest seminar: Professor Susanna Fagerholm
Faculty of Bio- and Environmental Sciences, University of Helsinki
Title: “Dendritic cell mechanical immune memory”
Where: Arje Scheinin lecture hall, Dentalia building
When: Tuesday, November 5, 13:00 – 14:00
Host: Pieta Mattila
About the speaker:
| Susanna Fagerholm is Professor of Cell and Molecular Biology at Faculty of Bio- and Environmental Sciences, University of Helsinki. She heads the Integrins in immunity research group. The group’s current main research interest lays in investigating how mechanical interactions of myeloid immune cells with their tissue microenvironment regulates their function. We focus mainly on dendritic cells, the main antigen presenting cells of the immune system. We propose that cellular interactions with the microenvironment play more important roles in regulating immune cell programming than previously thought, through so called “mechanical immune memory”. The immune cell “remembers” its mechanical interactions with the environment through epigenetic and metabolic effects, which impacts on immune cell gene expression, programming and cell function. Loss of cell adhesion to the microenvironment may constitute a new “danger signal” that induces myeloid cell reprogramming and increased immune responses in vivo. |
Selected publications:
- Harjunpää H, Somermäki R, Saldo Rubio G, Fusciello M, Feola S, Faisal I, Nieminen AI, Wang L, Llort Asens M, Zhao H, Eriksson O, Cerullo V, & Fagerholm SC. Loss of β2-integrin function results in metabolic reprogramming of dendritic cells, leading to increased dendritic cell functionality and anti-tumor responses. OncoImmunology, 13(1):2369373
- Harjunpää H, Tallberg R, Cui Y, Guenther C, Liew HK, Seelbach A, Saldo Rubio G, Airavaara M, Fagerholm SC. β2-Integrins Regulate Microglial Responses and the Functional Outcome of Hemorrhagic Stroke In Vivo. J Immunol. 213(4):519-525.
- Fagerholm SC. 2022. Integrins in health and diseases. New Engl J Med. 387:1519-1521.
- Guenther C, Faisal I, Fusciello M, Sokolova M, Ilander M, Harjunpää H, Tallberg R, Vartiainen M, Gonzalez-Granado J-M, Alon R, Cerullo V, Fagerholm SC. 2021. β2-integrin adhesion regulate dendritic cell epigenetic and transcriptional landscapes to restrict dendritic cell maturation and tumour rejection. Cancer Immunol Res. 9:1354–69
- Savinko T, Guenther C, Uotila L, Llort Asens M, Yao S, Tojkander S, Fagerholm SC. 2018. Filamin A is required for optimal T cell integrin-mediated force transmission, flow adhesion and T cell trafficking. J Immunol. 200(9):3109-3116.
- Morrison VL, James MJ, Grzes K, Cook P, Glass DG, Lek HS, Gawden-Bone C, Watts C, Millington OR, MacDonald AS, Fagerholm SC. 2014. Loss of beta2-integrin-mediated cytoskeletal linkage reprograms dendritic cells to a mature migratory phenotype. Nat Commun. 5: 5359.