1989: recipient of an EMBL postdoctoral fellowship.
1989-1990: recipient of a EU postdoctoral fellowship.
1990-1991: recipient of a Boehringer Ingelheim postdoctoral fellowship.
1991-1992: recipient of an EMBO long-term postdoctoral fellowship.
1997-2001: recipent of a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellowship in Biomedical Sciences.
Scientific societies/honors:
Elected EMBO Member in1998
Member of SIBBM (Italian Society of Biophysics and Molecular Biology) since 1998.
Member of ABCD (Association of Cellular and Developmental Biology) since 2007.
Memberof the “Cell Communication and Signaling” editorial Board.
Research interests:
Valeria Poli was for many years interested in the understanding of inflammatory cytokines signalling and of the mechanisms of transcriptional activation downstream of cytokines and growth factors both in vivo and in vitro. In the recent years the research in her laboratory has focused on the analysis of the biological functions of the transcription factorSTAT3, the main mediator of gp130 cytokines signalling. Conditional mutant mice amenable to Cre-mediated STAT3 deletion were generated and used to study the role of this factor in a number of inflammatory models. More recently, mice specifically lacking the STAT3alpha or beta isoforms were generated,demonstrating unique contributions of the two isoforms to STAT3 biological functions. The laboratory is now focusing on the understanding of the core mechanisms involved in STAT3 activities as an oncogene, at the cross-road between inflammation, immune response,tumor and stem cell niche and tumor transformation, analyzing its interactions with other oncogenes/oncosuppressor genes and trying to identify specific pro-oncogenic target genes.
Lab members:
Annalisa Camporeale, post-doctoral fellow
Gabriella Regis, post-doctoral fellow
Lidia Avalle, PhD student
Davide Schiavone, PhD student
Isaia Barbieri, PhD student
Marco Demaria, PhD student
Francesca Marino, under-graduate student
Valentina Miano, under-graduate student
Valeria Orecchia, under-graduate student
Corinna Cozzitorto, under-graduate student
Selected recent publications:
Alonzi T., Maritano D., Gorgoni B.,Rizzuto G., Libert C. and Poli V. Essential role of STAT3 in the control of the acute phase response as revealed by inducible gene inactivation in the liver.(2001) Mol Cell Biol. 21, 1621-1632.
Costa-Pereira, A.P.,Tininini, S., Strobl, B. Alonzi, T., Schlaak, J.F., Is’harc, H., Gesualdo, I. Newman, S.J., Kerr,I.M. and Poli, V. An Interferon-g-like response through IL-6 in the absence of STAT3. (2002) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 99, 8043-8047.
Alonzi, T., Newton, I.P., Bryce, P. J. DiCarlo, E., Lattanzio, G., Musiani, P. and Poli, V. Induced somatic inactivation of STAT3 in mice triggers the development of a fulminant form of enterocolitis. (2004) Cytokine 26, 45-56.
Ng, DCH,Lin, BH, Lim, CP, Zhang, T, Poli, V. and Cao, X (2006) Stat3 regulates microtubules by antagonizing the depolymerization activityof stathmin. J Cell Biol 172, 245-257.
Dewilde S,Vercelli A, Chiarle R and Poli V. Of alphas and betas: distinct and overlapping functions of STAT3 isoforms. (2008) Frontiers in Bioscience 13,6501-6514.
Regis G,Pensa S, Boselli D, Novelli F and Poli V. Ups and downs: The STAT1:STAT3 seesaw of Interferon and gp130 receptor signalling.Seminars in Cell and Developmental Biology 19(2008), pp. 351-359
Li W,Ferguson BJ, Khaled WT, Tevendale M, Stingl J, Poli V, Rich T, Salomoni P, Watson CJ. PML depletion disrupts normal mammary gland development and skews the composition of the mammary luminal cell progenitor pool. (2009) Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 106:4725-30.
Vallania, F., Schiavone, D., Dewilde, S.,Pupo, E., Garbay, S., Calogero, R., Pontoglio, M., Provero, P. andPoli,V. Genome-Wide Discovery of Functional Transcription Factor Binding Sites by Comparative Genomics: the Case of Stat3. (2009) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 106:5117-22.
Pensa S, Watson CJ and Poli V. Stat3 and the Inflammation/Acute Phase Response in Involution and Breast Cancer. (2009) J Mammary Gland Biol Neoplasia 14:121-9.
Pensa S, Regis G, Boselli D, Novelli F, Poli V. STAT1 and STAT3 in Tumorigenesis: TwoSides of the Same Coin? (2008) in Stephanou ed, “JAK-STAT Pathway in Disease”,Landes Bioscience, pp 100-121. ISBN: TBA.
Schiavone D, Dewilde S, Vallania F,Turkson J, Di Cunto F and Poli V. The RhoU/Wrch1 Rho GTPase gene is a common transcriptional target of both the gp130/Stat3 and Wnt-1 pathways. (2009) Biochem J. 421:283-92.
Regis G, Icardi L, Conti L,Chiarle R, Piva R,Giovarelli M, Poli V and Novelli F. IL-6, but not IFN-gamma, triggers apoptosis and inhibits in vivo growth of human malignant T cells on STAT3 silencing. (2009), Leukemia 11, 2102-8. PMID: 19626047.
Barbieri I, Quaglino E, Maritano D, Pannellini T, Riera L, Cavallo F, Forni G, Musiani P, Chiarle R and Poli V. Stat3 is required for anchorage independent growth and metastasis but not for mammary tumor development downstream of the ErbB-2 oncogene. (2010) Molecular Carcinogenesis 49:114-20.
Barbieri I, Pensa S, Pannellini T, Quaglino E, Maritano D, Demaria M, Voster A, Turkson J, Cavallo F, Watson CJ,ProveroP, Musiani P and Poli V. Constitutively active Stat3 enhancesNeu-mediated migration and metastasis in mammary tumors via upregulation of Cten. (2010) Cancer Res. 70:2558-67.
