Dr. Lisardo Boscá is a CSIC research professor, assigned to the Biomedical Research Institute Alberto Sols (CSIC). He has more than 160 original research articles in international journals in the field of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Immunology. He has focused on the study of the pathophysiology of inflammatory processes, investigating its contribution in processes as diverse as liver regeneration, septic shock and cardiomyocytes. He is a member of several international scientific societies. Dr. Boscá was the Scientific Director of the IDIBELL during a year and a half and, nowadays, he is member of the Scientific Advisory Board (SAB).

Inflammation can be provoked by pathogenic causes, as initial disorders, like Alzheimer’s disease, cancer or multiple sclerosis, among others, and as post-inflammatory disorders. Some inflammations can be caused by bacteria and other pathogenes, tumor cells, etc. The cells related with inflammation are monocytes, macrophages and neutrophils, T and B lymphocytes, etc. And some molecules are also related with inflammation, like pro-inflammatory CK, among others.

The macrophages constitute different populations. Bone marrow can become a peripheral blood and, then, developed to inflamed or normal tissue. In this process there are many chances. The macrophages stimulation from the monocyte can be activated by an innate response or by a classical activation (M1) or by an alternative activation (IL4/IL-13) or by resolution/deactivation (IL10/TGFB (M2).

Boscá said that the objective is “to see the profiling of macrophage activation”. There are different stimuli: M1 and M2. The main source of ATP in M1 M0 is glycolysis and this “glycolytic” ATP is relevant to maintain M0 viability. The M0 are essentially in glycolytic cells. The overlapping between M1 and M2 is minimal.

Atherosclerosis

The macrophages have an important role in the activation of the atherosclerosis process. We can see the use of M0 metabolic activity in the study of cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). The macrophages have a role in CVDs and Granulocyte macrophage-colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF). The glycolytic flux correlates with human macrophage activation regardless of stimulus and conditions. M1 is one of the key activators.