George Kollias, Proffesor of Experimental Physiology, Director of Laboratory of Physiology
The main objective of our research is to understand the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying immunological disease initiation, progression and chronicity, and to provide innovative solutions towards their diagnosis, prognosis and therapy. Towards that end, we use a unique collection of transgenic mouse models, conditional gene targeting, and state-of-the-art cellular and molecular technologies. We combine omics approaches and large-scale data analyses with in depth dissection of candidate gene function in vivo and in vitro, from human vs animal models, to discover causalities in the epigenetic, transcriptional and proteomic changes that occur in specific cell types of interest during disease course. Through the identification and validation of unexplored pathways, targets and biomarkers, we aim to introduce novel concepts towards disease prognosis, prevention and therapy.
Our research team is organized into five groups which are focused on specific organs and disease areas or on the development of preclinical therapeutic approaches:
- Chronic Inflammatory Arthritis
- Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) and Cancer
- Neuroinflammation and neuroimmune interactions
- Dynamics of Mesenchymal Cells in Lymphoid Microenvironments
- Drug Development Research
Our research is performed at the Department of Physiology of the Medical School of Athens, in collaboration with the laboratory of George Kollias at the Institute for Bioinnovation at the Biomedical Sciences Research Center “Alexander Fleming”, where George Kollias is an Associated Researcher.
Selected recent publications
- Armaka M, Konstantopoulos D, Tzaferis C, Lavigne MD, Sakkou M, Liakos A, Sfikakis PP, Dimopoulos MA, Fousteri M, Kollias G. (2022) Single-cell multimodal analysis identifies common regulatory programs in synovial fibroblasts of rheumatoid arthritis patients and modeled TNF-driven arthritis. Genome Med. 2022 Jul 26;14(1):78. doi: 10.1186/s13073-022-01081-3. PMID: 35879783; PMCID: PMC9316748.
- Prados A, Onder L, Cheng HW, Mörbe U, Lütge M, Gil-Cruz C, Perez-Shibayama C, Koliaraki V, Ludewig B, Kollias G. (2021) Fibroblastic reticular cell lineage convergence in Peyer’s patches governs intestinal immunity. Nat Immunol. 22(4):510-519.
- Nanou A, Bourbouli M, Vetrano S, Schaeper U, Ley S, Kollias G. (2021) Endothelial Tpl2 regulates vascular barrier function via JNK-mediated degradation of claudin-5 promoting neuroinflammation or tumor metastasis. Cell Rep. 35(8):109168.
- Roulis M, Kaklamanos A, Schernthanner M, Bielecki P, Zhao J, Kaffe E, Frommelt LS, Qu R, Knapp MS, Henriques A, Chalkidi N, Koliaraki V, Jiao J, Brewer JR, Bacher M, Blackburn HN, Zhao X, Breyer RM, Aidinis V, Jain D, Su B, Herschman HR,
- Kluger Y, Kollias G, Flavell RA. (2020) Paracrine orchestration of intestinal tumorigenesis by a mesenchymal niche. Nature 580(7804) :524-529.
- Koliaraki V, Chalkidi N, Henriques A, Tzaferis C, Polykratis A, Waisman A, Muller W, Hackam DJ, Pasparakis M, Kollias G. (2019) Innate Sensing through Mesenchymal TLR4/MyD88 Signals Promotes Spontaneous Intestinal Tumorigenesis. Cell Rep. 26(3):536-545.e4.
- Henriques A, Koliaraki V, Kollias G. (2018) Mesenchymal MAPKAPK2/HSP27 drives intestinal carcinogenesis Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 115(24):E5546-E5555.
- Armaka M, Ospelt C, Pasparakis M, Kollias G. (2018) The p55TNFR-IKK2-Ripk3 axis orchestrates arthritis by regulating death and inflammatory pathways in synovial fibroblasts Nat Commun. 12;9(1):618.
- Ntari L, Sakkou M, Chouvardas P, Mourouzis I, Prados A, Denis MC, Karagianni N, Pantos C, Kollias G. (2018) Comorbid TNF-mediated heart valve disease and chronic polyarthritis share common mesenchymal cell-mediated aetiopathogenesis Ann Rheum Dis. 77(6):926-934.
Recent reviews
- Iliopoulou L, Kollias G. (2022) Harnessing murine models of Crohn’s disease ileitis to advance concepts of pathophysiology and treatment Mucosal Immunol. 15(1):10-26.
- Koliaraki V, Prados A, Armaka M, Kollias G. (2020) The mesenchymal context in inflammation, immunity and cancer. Nat Immunol. 21(9): 974-982.
- Koliaraki V, Henriques A, Prados A, Kollias G. (2020) Unfolding innate mechanisms in the cancer microenvironment: The emerging role of the mesenchyme. J Exp Med. 217 (4):e20190457.
- Koliaraki V, Pallangyo CK, Greten FR, Kollias G. (2017) Mesenchymal Cells in Colon Cancer Gastroenterology 152(5): 964-979.
Personnel
| Doctoral students Lida Iliopoulou, MSc Christos Tzaferis, MSc (BioIT) MSx students Management/Biocuration
| Infrastructures/pMedGR Maria Sakkou, PhD Kelly Vetsika, PhD Panagiotis Lembessis, PhD Kleio Verrou, ΜSc (ΒioIT) Menelaos Manoloukos, ΜSc Secretariat MSc Molecular Biomedicine |
