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| João Laranjinha |
| Group Leader |
Associate Professor
Faculty of Pharmacy
University of Coimbra |
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+351 239 852564 |
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| Research |
Free radicals are reactive chemical species that are continuously produced by cells, either by accident, such as the escape of electrons in mitochondria to molecular oxygen, or in a highly regulated manner via enzymatic synthesis. Because they are reactive may attack and oxidize biomolecules, leading to disruption of redox signaling and molecular and cell damage, a situation coined as Oxidative Stress. That is why radicals have been implicated in the ethiology of several diseases, including cardiovascular, neurological, inflammatory, cancer and as well in aging, and also why antioxidants, molecules counteracting free radical-mediated oxidations, namely the polyphenols present in the diet, have been suggested to exhibit health-promoting effects. More recently, in the last decade or so, it has been realized that free radicals are not only toxic compounds but participate in the regulation of cell functions and are, therefore, critical molecules in the homeostasis. The term redox regulation is nowadays used to refer to the radical and oxidant-mediated protein functions in cellular signaling pathways.
A simple radical synthesized in vivo with multiple bioactivities is nitric oxide. This gaseous free radical, known for a long time as an atmospheric pollutant, diffuses throughout our cells and is a crucial player in the plastic phenomena occurring in our brain (memory, learning, etc), and is also responsible fro the relaxation of blood vessels. Because nitric oxide is an atypical messenger that crosses cell membranes and does not interact with specific targets the information it carries is associated with the spatiotemporal profile of change in a biological setting. In order to understand this, we have recently determined how far nitric oxide diffuses in hipocampus following its production via stimulation o glutamate NMDA receptors using microlectrodes inserted into the brain tissue.
Generally, the research of this group focuses on 1) the study of molecular mechanisms inherent to neuromodulation, and aging that critically involve free radicals and oxidants, particularly nitric oxide; 2) the elucidation of the molecular mechanisms underlying the health-promoting role of plant-derived dietary phenolic antioxidants, particularly those present in wine and olive oil, in the context of vascular diseases. |
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| Ricardo Santos |
| PhD student |
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| Cátia Marques |
| PhD student |
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| Collaborations |
| Enrique Cadenas - Dept. Molecular Pharmacology & Toxicology, University of Southern California, USA. Nitric oxide in neurodegeneration and aging. |
| Greg Gerhardt - Dept. Anatomy and Neurobiology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky, USA. Development of microsensors for nitric oxide measurement in tissues. |
| Victor Freitas - Departamento de Química, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade do Porto, Portugal. Antioxidant activity of dietary polyphenols on the carviovascular system. |
| Santiago Lamas - CIB-CSIC (Centro de Investigaciones Biológicas - Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas) e CNIC Foundation (Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares), Madrid, Espanha. Nitric oxide dynamics in endothelial cells. |
| Simon Heales – Institute of Neurology, University College London. Nitric oxide and excitotoxicity. |
| Jon Lunberg - Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden. Biology of nitrite as a source of nitric oxide |
| Rafael Radi and Homero Rubbo – Faculty of Medicine, University of Montevideo, Uruguay. Biological nitrations. |
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| Further Information and Publications |
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