#IDIBELLfellows: Ana Amaya Garrido / Marcel Schilling

Exploring Cdc42 as a novel therapeutic target to promote resistance to ischemia/reperfusion injury in aging kidneys
Ana Amaya Garrido – Nephrology and Renal Transplantation Group
Delayed grafted function (DGF) is the most important clinical correlate of ischemia-reperfusion injury after renal transplantation leading to the need of dialysis in 30-50% of the cases. This is due to the combination of the several factors such as age. Paradoxically, the older donor is an imposed reality and older kidneys are more susceptible to damage caused by cold ischemia. Cell division cycle 42 (Cdc42), a protein involved in cytoskeleton arrangement and cell polarity, has been shown to be crucial in kidney development. Moreover, the activity of Cdc42 is significantly higher in tissues from old mice compared to young, therefore is involved in the aging process. Our aim is to validate the physiological relevance of the ageing-associated increase in Cdc42 in the kidney and its contribution to DGF after renal transplantation. For this we are studying Cdc42 expression and cytoskeleton organization in vitro using progenitor cells isolated from the urine of renal transplantation patients’ and stablishing a correlation with age and other clinical parameters. Moreover, we are using in vivo models of aging and renal ischemia to determine whether pharmacological regulation of Cdc42 modulates cytoskeleton, polarity of kidney cells and increases resistance.

Post-transcriptional regulation in iPSC derived neural and glial cells from Alzheimer disease patients
Marcel Schilling – Gene Regulation of Cell Identity Group
Application of scRNA-seq analyses to study post-transcriptional regulation in samples covering neuronal differentiation over time comparing cell lines derived from AD patients and controls.