Cadherins are a large family of calcium-dependent cell-cell adhesion molecules that mediate adherens junction formation. In our lab, we study both the activation and the inhibition mechanism of classical cadherins. Our overarching goal is to map the large conformational space associated with the cadherin activation mechanism and to develop selective modulators of cadherin-mediated cell-cell adhesion.

Selected publications

• Pleiko K, Haugas M, Parfejevs V, Pantelejevs T, Parisini E, Teesalu T, Riekstina U. Targeting triple-negative breast cancer cells with β1-integrin binding aptamer. Molecular Therapy – Nucleic Acids. 2023, 33, 871. DOI: 10.1016/j.omtn.2023.08.015

• Agrawal N, Parisini E. Investigating the effects of POPC-POPG Lipid Bilayer Composition on PAP248-286 Binding using CG Molecular Dynamics Simulations. J. Chem. Phys B. 2023, 127, 9095. DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpcb.3c05385

• Nikhil Agrawal, Adam A. Skelton, Emilio Parisini, “A Coarse-Grained Molecular Dynamics Investigation on Spontaneous Binding of Aβ1-40 Fibrils with Cholesterol-mixed DPPC Bilayers” Computational and Structural Biotechnology Journal 2023, 21, 2688-2695. DOI: 10.1016/j.csbj.2023.04.013

• Francesca Vasile, Francesca Lavore, Silvia Gazzola, Chiara Vettraino, Emilio Parisini, Umberto Piarulli, Laura Belvisi, Monica Civera. A combined fragment-based virtual screening and STD-NMR approach for the identification of E-cadherin ligands. Front. Chem. 2022, 10, 946087. DOI: 10.3389/fchem.2022.946087

• Nikhil Agrawal, Emilio Parisini. Early Stages of Misfolding of PAP248-286 at two different pH values: An Insight from Molecular Dynamics Simulations. Comput. Struct. Biotechnol. J. 2022, 20, 4892-4901. DOI: 10.1016/j.csbj.2022.08.060

• Nikhil Agrawal, Adam A. Skelton, Emilio Parisini. “A coarse-grained molecular dynamics investigation on spontaneous binding of Aβ9-40 fibril with cholesterol mixed DPPC bilayer”. Posted on BioRxiv, 2022. DOI: 10.1101/2022.09.16.508209

• Dalle Vedove A, Falchi F, Donini S, Dobric A, Germain S, Di Martino GP, Prosdocimi T, Vettraino C, Torretta A, Cavalli A, Rigot V, Andre’ F, Parisini E.  Structure-based virtual screening allows the identification of efficient modulators of E-cadherin-mediated cell-cell adhesion. Int. J. Mol. Sci., 2019, 20, 3404.

• Civera M, Vasile F, Potenza D, Colombo C, Parente S, Vettraino C, Prosdocimi T, Parisini E, Belvisi L. Exploring E-cadherin-peptidomimetics interaction using NMR and computational studies. PLOS Comp. Biol., 2019, 15, e1007041.

• Nardone V, Lucarelli AP, Dalle Vedove A, Fanelli R, Tomassetti A, Belvisi L, Civera M, Parisini E. Crystal structure of human E-cadherin-EC1EC2 in complex with a peptidomimetic competitive inhibitor of cadherin homophilic interaction. J. Med. Chem., 2016, 59, 5089.

• Doro F, Colombo C, Alberti C, Arosio D, Belvisi L, Casagrande C, Fanelli R, Manzoni L, Parisini E, Piarulli U, Luison E., Figini M., Tomassetti A, Civera M. Computational design of novel peptidomimetic inhibitors of cadherin homophilic interactions. Org. Biomol. Chem., 2015, 13, 2570.

• Dalle Vedove A, Lucarelli AP, Nardone V, Matino A, Parisini E. The X-ray structure of human P-cadherin EC1-EC2 in a closed conformation provides insight into the type I cadherin dimerization pathway. Acta Crystallogr. Sect F, 2015, F71, 371.

• Parisini E, Higgins JMG, Liu JH, Brenner MB, Wang JH. The crystal structure of human E-cadherin domains 1 and 2, and comparison with other cadherins in the context of adhesion mechanism. J. Mol. Biol., 2007; 373, 401-411.