Research

Area 4

Secondary Lesions due to Chronic Alcohol Consumption: Muscular Pathology

Team manager
Álvaro Urbano Márquez
(Hospital Clínic)
URBANO(ELIMINAR)@clinic.ub.es

Strategic objectives

1. Study of the pathologic mechanisms of alcohol on organic cells and the disease it causes at the neurologic and cardiocirculatory level.

2. Importance of alcohol in intracytosolic calcium transport.

3. Effect of alcohol on the development of arteriosclerosis.

4. Prognosis of alcoholic myocardiopathy and its most suitable treatment.

5. Study of muscular and myocardial apoptosis with chronic alcohol consumption.

6. Study of the pathophysiology of muscular diseases, particularly in muscular immunohistochemical, immunogenetic and angiogenic changes (prognostic factors) of inflammatory myopathies.

7. Study of metabolic myopathies, particularly glucogenesis and myoadenylate-deaminase deficit.

8. Study of myocardial regeneration in alcoholic myocardiopathy.

9. Clinical and functional repercussion of chronic fatigue syndrome.

10. Study of the effects of moderate wine consumption and the Mediterranean diet in the prevention of cardiovascular diseases.

11. Study of mitochondrial myopathies in adults and secondary mitochondrial involvement in different pathologic and toxic situations.

12. Study of the pathophysiologic mechanisms implicated in the development of systemic vasculitis.

Our future challenges are:

1. To learn more about the action of alcohol on signal translation and apoptosis at muscular and myocardial level and the influence of possible alterations to mitochondrial DNA and the mitochondrial respiratory chain on degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer, inflammatory myopathies and due to inclusion bodies.

2. To learn more about the prognostic factors of dermatomyositis for early detection of cases that require more vigorous treatments (anti-TNF, gammaglobulins).

3. To characterize the clinical and morphologic aspect of metabolic myopathies (glucogenesis and MDA deficiency).

4. To study sarcopenia in the geriatric population.

5. To learn more about mitochondrial toxicity of antiretroviral drugs and of CO.

6. Proteomic studies on the mechanisms of skeletal and cardiac muscle tissue damage due to exposure to alcohol.

7. Study of the regeneration of myocardial cells using stem cells in the myocardium of chronic alcoholic patients.

Main lines of research

I Research Group on Muscle/Mitochondrial Function:

1. Histologic, histochemical and immunohistochemical study of myopathies
2. Study of mitochondrial functionalism
3. Study of mitochondrial diseases with special emphasis on biochemical and genetic studies in different cellular substrates.
4. Analysis of respiration and mitochondrial DNA in muscle, fatty tissue and lymphocytes in HIV patients and patients being treated with antiretroviral drugs.
5. Effect of smoking, carbon monoxide and neuroleptic agents on mitochondrial function.
6. Mitochondrial function in sepsis.

II Vascular inflammation:

1. Expression of cytokines and growth factors in inflammatory lesions of blood vessels and their relationship with phenotype expression, complications and outcome of systemic vasculitis.
2. Study of the interactions between lymphocytes, the endothelium and the extracellular matrix in the development and perpetuation of vascular inflammation and in the mechanisms that play a role in vascular occlusion and regeneration.
3. Creation of a questionnaire to evaluate the quality of life in patients with giant cell arteritis (international study).
4. Expression of angiogenic and antiangiogenic factors as prognostic indicators of dermatomyositis.

III Alcohol-induced disease:

1. We are investigating the relationship between alcohol and arterial hypertension; the course of alcoholic myocardiopathy, the role of phenol derivatives of wine and alcohol as factors that influence the appearance of atherosclerosis; the effect of nicotine and ageing on mitochondrial respiration; and the presence of growth factors and adhesion molecules in angiogenesis, apoptosis, myocardiopathy and alcoholic myopathy.
2. Study of the effects of moderate wine consumption, the Mediterranean diet and other products rich in polyphenols in the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease.
3. Proteomic studies in skeletal and cardiac muscle in the context of the pathogenesis of tissue damage due to exposure to alcohol.