Study of the role of protective genes against inflammatory stimuli in experimental in vitro and in vivo models

During my PhD program I addressed my attention on the characterization and possible regulation of the inflammatory response, induced by pro-inflammatory cytokines in vitro, and hypercholesterolemic diet in vivo. Thanks to the chance I had, to be primary involved in different projects in my PhD program, the study presented here embraces two aspects that at first may appear different, but share the property to act on the tissue as an “insult” to which the cells have to react. On one side, in our laboratory we performed in vitro studies characterizing the protective effects, against inflammatory stimuli, of the simultaneous over-expression of three human genes well know to be involved in the down-regulation of all the inflammatory events associated with delayed xenograft rejection. On the other, we evaluated for the first time in a porcine model of mild-hypercholesterolemia whether high-cholesterol diet, besides vascular changes, is sufficient to induce a systemic and tissue-specific inflammation.