Profile
The carbohydrates present in proteins and lipids form a glycan code which is decodified in the cell by a family of proteins called lectins, to which galectin-8 belongs. Our laboratory has contributed to understanding the function of galectin-8 (Gal-8) in different cellular contexts, as an immunosuppressor in the immune system and as a neuroprotector in the central nervous system. We also describe the presence of anti-Gal-8 antibodies in patients with autoimmune diseases such as systemic lupus erythematosus and multiple sclerosis which block Gal-8 functions. We recently showed that Gal-8 promotes the activation of the proteasome, a system responsible for the degradation of 80% of proteins in the cell and epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), a process by which epithelial cells undergo phenotypic changes that confer migratory and proliferative capacity. EMT is activated under pathological as well as in physiological conditions. We are currently interested in understanding the mechanisms by which Gal-8 induces EMT and proteasome activation that might contribute to tissue repair and to cancer development.
- Research Head: Andrea Soza
- Doctoral Students: Ronny Hernadez, Adely de la Peña
- Undergraduate Students: Sofia Leiva, Francisca Pérez
- Research Assistants: Elisa Pérez PhD
- 2006-2007 Lucas Vicuña (former undergraduated student). Pontifica Universidad Católica de Chile
- 2009 Evelyn Pardo (former undergraduated student ). Pontifica Universidad Católica de Chile
- 2009 Claudia Oyanadel (former undergraduated student ). Pontifica Universidad Católica de Chile.
- 2012-2013 Felipe Garay (former undergraduated student ). Pontifica Universidad Católica de Chile
- 2012-2013 Cristobal Curkovic. (former undergraduated student Mgs). Universidad Andrés Bello.
- 2013-2014 Christopher Holmes (former undergraduated student ). Pontifica Universidad Católica de Chile
- 2015-2016 Felipe Padilla (former undergraduated student ). Pontifica Universidad Católica de Chile
- 2016-2017 Adely de la Peña (former undergraduated student ). Pontifica Universidad Católica de Chile
- 2016-2017 Francisca Pérez (former undergraduated student ). Universidad San Sebastián
- 2021-2022 Sofía Leiva (former undergraduated student ). Universidad San Sebastián
National Collaborations
- Dr. Fabiola Sanchez, Universidad Austral, Valdivia
- Dr. Pamela Ehrensfeld, Universidad Austral, Valdivia
- Dra. Claudia Oyanadel, CEBICEM,Universidad San Sebastián
- Dra. Milena Mimica, CEBICEM,Universidad San Sebastián
- Dra. Loreto Massardo, CEBICEM,Universidad San Sebastián
- Dr. Patricia Burgos, CEBICEM,Universidad San Sebastián
- Dr Alfonso González , CEBICEM,Universidad San Sebastián
- Dr. Jorge Cáncino, CEBICEM,Universidad San Sebastián
Internationals Collaborations
- Dr. Felix Randow
Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, England.
- Dr. Michael Seeger and Dr. Ulrike Kuckelkorn,
Laboratory Proteolytic Systems
Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Germany.
Publications
Pardo E, Carcamo C, Massardo L, Mezzano V, Jacobelli S, Gonzalez A, Soza .A Antibodies against galectin-8 in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus..Rev Med Chil. 2006,Feb;134(2):159-66.
Cárcamo C, Pardo E, Oyanadel C, Bravo-Zehnder M, Bull P, Caceres M, Martinez J, Massardo L, Jacobelli S, González A, Soza A. Galectin-8 binds specific beta1 integrins and induces polarized spreading highlighted by asymmetric lamellipodia in Jurkat T cells.. Exp Cell Res. 2006 Feb 15;312(4):374-86
Voigt A, Salzmann U, Seifert U, Dathe M, Soza A, Kloetzel PM, Kuckelkorn U. 20S proteasome-dependent generation of an IEpp89 murine cytomegalovirus-derived H-2L(d) epitope from a recombinant protein. Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 2007 Apr 6;355(2):549-54.
Scheffler S, Kuckelkorn U, Egerer K, Dörner T, Reiter K, Soza A, Burmester GR, Feist. Autoimmune reactivity against the 20S-proteasome includes immunosubunits LMP2 (beta1i), MECL1 (beta2i) and LMP7 (beta5i) Rheumatology (Oxford) , 2008, 47, 622-626
Norambuena A, Metz C, Vicuña L, Silva A, Pardo E, Oyanadel C, Massardo L, González A, *Soza A. (2009) Galectin-8 Induces Apoptosis in Jurkat T Cells by Phosphatidic Acid-mediated ERK1/2 Activation Supported by Protein Kinase A Down-regulation. J Biol Chem,284(19):12670
Massardo L, Metz C, Pardo E, Mezzano V, Babul M, Jarpa E, Guzmán A, André S, Kaltner H, Gabius H, Jacobelli S, González A, *Soza A. (2009). Autoantibodies against galectin-8: their specificity, association with lymphopenia in systemic lupus erythematosus and detection in rheumatoid arthritis and acute inflammation. Lupus. 2009;18(6):539-46
Diskin S, Chen WS, Cao Z, Gyawali S, Gong H, Soza A, González A, Panjwani N, (2012). Galectin-8 promotes cytoskeletal rearrangement in trabecular meshwork cells through activation of Rho signaling. PLoS One, 7, 9,
Vicuña Lucas, Pardo Evelyn, Curkovic Cristobal, Döger Remziye, Oyanadel Claudia, Metz Claudia, Massardo Loreto, González Alfonso and Soza Andrea* (2013). Galectin-8 binds to LFA-1, blocks its interaction with ICAM-1 and is counteracted by anti-Gal-8 autoantibodies isolated from lupus patients. Biological Research, 2013;46(3):275-80
Claudia Metz, Remziye Döger, Elizabeth Riquelme, Priscilla Cortés, Christopher Holmes, Ronan Shaughnessy, Claudia Oyanadel, Catalina Grabowski, Alfonso González, and Andrea Soza* (2016). Galectin-8 promotes migration and proliferation and prevents apoptosis in U87 glioblastoma cells. Biol Res.; 49: 33.
Alhejandra Álvarez, Felipe Uribe, Jimena Canales, Cristóbal Romero, Andrea Soza, María Alicia Peña, Marcelo Antonelli, Oscar Almarza, Oscar Cerda, Héctor Toledo (2017). KCTD5 and Ubiquitin Proteasome Signaling are required for Helicobacter pylori adherence . Front Cell Infect Microbiol.;7:450
Evelyn Pardo, Claudia Cárcamo, Reinaldo Uribe-San Martín, Ethel Ciampi, Fabián Segovia-Miranda, Cristobal Curkovic, Fabián Montecino, Christopher Holmes, Juan Enrique Tichauer, Eric Acuña, Francisco Osorio-Barrios, Marjorie Castro, Priscilla Cortes, Claudia Oyanadel, David Valenzuela, Rodrigo Pacheco, Rodrigo Naves, Andrea Soza* and Alfonso González (2017). Galectin-8 as an immunosuppressor in experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis and a target of human early prognostic antibodies in multiple sclerosis. PLoS One. ;12(6):e0177472.
Dorian Obino, Luc Fetler, Andrea Soza, Odile Malbec, Juan José Saez, Nicolas Goles, Danielle Lankar, Fabian Segovia, Alfonso Gonzalez, Marion Espéli, Ana-Maria Lennon-Duménil and Maria-Isabel Yuseff. Galectin-8 favors the presentation of surface-tethered antigensby stabilizing the B cell immune synapse” . Cell Rep. 2018 Dec 11;25(11):3110-3122.e6. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2018.11.052
Hianara A Bustamante, Alexis E González, Cristobal Cerda-Troncoso, Ronan Shaughnessy, Carola Otth, Andrea Soza*, Patricia V Burgos.Interplay between the autophagy-lysosomal pathway and the ubiquitin-proteasome system: a target for therapeutic development in Alzheimer’s disease. Front Cell Neurosci. 2018 May 9;12:126. doi: 10.3389/fncel.2018.00126.
Claudia Oyanadel, Christopher Holmes, Evelyn Pardo, Marcela Bravo-Zehnder, Patricio Smith, Ronan Shaughnessy, Teo Feuerhake, Claudia Metz, Claudio Retamal, Diego Romero, Viviana Montecinos, Juan Carlos Roa, Andrea Soza* and Alfonso González. Galectin-8 induces partial epithelial-mesenchymal transition and an invasive tumorigenic phenotype involving a FAK/EGFR/proteasome pathway in MDCK cells. Mol Biol Cell. 2018 Mar 1;29(5):557-574. doi: 10.1091/mbc.E16-05-0301.
Albornoz N, Bustamante H, Soza A, Burgos P. Cellular Responses to Proteasome Inhibition: Molecular Mechanisms and Beyond. Int J Mol Sci. 2019 Jul 10;20(14). doi: 10.3390/ijms20143379.
Evelyn Pardo, Francisca Barake, Juan A. Godoy, Claudia Oyanadel, Sofía Espinoza, Claudia Metz, Claudio Retamal, Loreto Massardo, Cheril Tapia-Rojas, Nibaldo C. Inestrosa , Andrea Soza* and Alfonso González. Galectin-8 is a neuroprotective factor in the brain that can be neutralized by human autoantibodies. Molecular Neurobiology (2019).
Ibañez-Vega J., Del Valle Batalla F., Saez J. J., Soza A*., Yuseff MI.Proteasome dependent actin remodeling facilitates antigen extraction at the immune synapse of B cells. Frontiers Immunology (2019).
Patricia Zamorano, Tania Koening, Claudia Oyanadel , Gonzalo A. Mardones, Pamela Ehrenfeld, Mauricio P. Boric, Walter N Duran, Alfonso González, Andrea Soza* and Fabiola A. Sánchez. Galectin-8 induces endothelial hyper-permeability through the eNOS pathway involving S-nitrosylation-mediated adherenss junction disassembly. Carcinogenesis. 2019 Jan 8. doi: 10.1093/carcin/bgz002.
Smith PC, Metz C, de la Pena A, Oyanadel C, Avila P, Arancibia R, Vicuna L, Retamal C, Barake F, Gonzalez A and Soza A*. Galectin-8 mediates fibrogenesis induced by cyclosporine in human gingival fibroblasts. J Periodontal Res 2020. doi 10.1111/jre.1276.
Barake F, Soza A, González A. Galectins in the brain: advances in neuroinflammation, neuroprotection and therapeutic opportunities. Curr Opin Neurol. 2020 Jun;33(3):381-390. doi: 10.1097/WCO.0000000000000812.
Ibañez-Vega J, Del Valle F, Sáez JJ, Guzman F , Diaz J , Soza A* and Yuseff1 MI*. Ecm29-Dependent Proteasome Localization Regulates Cytoskeleton Remodeling at the Immune Synapse. Front. Cell Dev. Biol. (2021), 13 May doi.org/10.3389/fcell.2021.650817