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Cambridge Immunology Network

 

Research

Our research is focused on understanding how immune cells interact with bacteria, how intracellular killing and inflammation are regulated and sometimes subverted during infection, how population-level whole genome sequencing can be used to reveal biology of bacterial infection, and how therapeutic enhancement of cell-autonomous immunity may provide novel strategies to treat multi drug resistant pathogens.

Publications

Key publications: 

Mark Schiebler, Karen Brown, Krisztina Hegyi, Sandra M Newton, Maurizio Renna, Lucy Hepburn, Catherine Klapholz, Sarah Coulter, Andres Obregón‐Henao, Marcela Henao Tamayo, Randall Basaraba, Beate Kampmann, Katherine M Henry, Joseph Burgon, Stephen A Renshaw, Angeleen Fleming, Robert R Kay, Karen E Anderson, Phillip T Hawkins, Diane J Ordway, David C Rubinsztein, Rodrigo Andres Floto Functional drug screening reveals anticonvulsants as enhancers of mTOR‐independent autophagic killing of Mycobacterium tuberculosis through inositol depletion EMBO Molecular Medicine

Hepburn L, Prajsnar TK, Klapholz C, Moreno P, Loynes CA, Ogryzko NV, Brown K, Schiebler M, Hegyi K, Antrobus R, Hammond KL, Connolly J, Ochoa B, Bryant C, Otto M, Surewaard B, Seneviratne SL, Grogono DM, Cachat J, Ny T, Kaser A, Török ME, Peacock SJ, Holden M, Blundell T, Wang L, Ligoxygakis P, Minichiello L, Woods CG, Foster SJ, Renshaw SA, Floto RA. Innate immunity. A Spaetzle-like role for nerve growth factor β in vertebrate immunity to Staphylococcus aureus. Science. 2014 Oct 31;346(6209):641-6. 

Bryant J, Grogono DM, Greaves D, Foweraker J, Roddick I, Inns T, Reachers M, Haworth CS, Curran MD, Harris SR, Peacock SJ, Parkhill J, Floto RA. Whole-genome sequencing to identify transmission of Mycobacterium abscessus between patients with cystic fibrosis: a retrospective cohort study. Lancet. 2013;  May 4;381(9877):1551-60.

Hill UG, Floto RA, Haworth CS. Non-tuberculous mycobacteria in cystic fibrosis. J R Soc Med. 2012 Jun;105 Suppl 2:S14-8.

Mason MJ, Schaffner C, Floto RA, Teo QA.Constitutive expression of a Mg2+-inhibited K+ current and a TRPM7-like current in human erythroleukemia cells. Am J Physiol Cell Physiol. 2012 Mar;302(6):C853-67.

Renna M, Schaffner C, Brown K, Shang S, Tamayo MH, Hegyi K, Grimsey NJ, Cusens D, Coulter S, Cooper J, Bowden AR, Newton SM, Kampmann B, Helm J, Jones A, Haworth CS, Basaraba RJ, DeGroote MA, Ordway DJ, Rubinsztein DC, Floto RA.Azithromycin blocks autophagy and may predispose cystic fibrosis patients to mycobacterial infection. J Clin Invest. 2011 Sep;121(9):3554-63

Renna M, Schaffner C, Winslow AR, Menzies FM, Peden AA, Floto RA, Rubinsztein DC. Autophagic substrate clearance requires activity of the syntaxin-5 SNARE complex. J Cell Sci. 2011 Feb 1;124(Pt 3):469-82.

Dai X, Jayapal M, Tay HK, Reghunathan R, Lin G, Too CT, Lim YT, Chan SH, Kemeny DM, Floto RA, Smith KG, Melendez AJ, MacAry PA. Differential signal transduction, membrane trafficking, and immune effector functions mediated by FcgammaRI versus FcgammaRIIa. Blood. 2009 Jul 9;114(2):318-27.

Williams A, Sarkar S, Cuddon P, Ttofi EK, Saiki S, Siddiqi FH, Jahreiss L, Fleming A, Pask D, Goldsmith P, O'Kane CJ, Floto RA & Rubinsztein DC Novel targets for Huntington's disease in an mTOR-independent autophagy pathway, Nat Chem Biol 2008 4:295–305

Professor Andres  Floto
Takes PhD students
Not available for consultancy

Affiliations

Collaborator profiles: 
Person keywords: 
phagocytosis
phospholipid signalling
cell culture
confocal microscopy
antigen presentation
heat shock proteins (hsp)
monocytes
Toll-like receptors
antigen processing
macrophages
live cell imaging
calcium imaging
human studies
immune complexes
recombinant protein expression
signalling
signal transduction
calcium signalling
microscopy
fluorescence microscopy
clinical immunology
FACS
neutrophils
dendritic cells