TIKKS | Innovative insight into the endogenous kallikrein-kinin system in tissue in health and disease state

Summary
Cardiovascular diseases, cancer, and sepsis are the leading causes of death worldwide. In all of them, a strong involvement of the endogenous kallikrein-kinin system (KKS) is postulated. However, the KKS is only rudimentarily understood, which is also reflected by the large proportion of developed drugs showing insufficient efficacy. The KKS is a 2-arm cascade that is present in both the blood as well as the tissue and its actions are mediated by the so-called kinins. Comprehensive insight into the cascade is greatly hindered by the lack of appropriate bioanalytical techniques. While the fellow has recently developed an innovative mass spectrometric method for the plasma KKS and applied in clinical studies, the tissue KKS has not yet been investigated, although the physiological action is likely exerted only in tissue. The advances in mass spectrometric imaging are currently used for metabolomics or mapping of biomolecules in tissue, but appear to be highly promising also for targeted kinin detection in the tissue KKS. The fellow with his key expertise in targeted mass spectrometric kinin quantification will use different mass spectrometric imaging techniques (DESI, MALDI, MasSpec Pen) to evaluate the tissue KKS. Hence, the TIKKS project is to first time study the presence, distribution, metabolism and overall profile of kinins in different (diseased) tissues by mass spectrometric imaging. For this purpose, various malignant tissues are examined as a main objective and subsequently extended to cardiovascular diseases and angioedema. This innovative approach will allow the fellow to uniquely investigate physiology and pathophysiology across both arms of the KKS (tissue & plasma) and therefore strengthen him on his path to his own professorship. The combined power of the innovative imaging approach and the already established mass spectrometric platform for plasma KKS will critically accelerate the discovery of promising drug targets for non-communicable diseases.
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More information & hyperlinks
Web resources: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101068449
Start date: 01-05-2022
End date: 30-04-2025
Total budget - Public funding: - 265 647,00 Euro
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Original description

Cardiovascular diseases, cancer, and sepsis are the leading causes of death worldwide. In all of them, a strong involvement of the endogenous kallikrein-kinin system (KKS) is postulated. However, the KKS is only rudimentarily understood, which is also reflected by the large proportion of developed drugs showing insufficient efficacy. The KKS is a 2-arm cascade that is present in both the blood as well as the tissue and its actions are mediated by the so-called kinins. Comprehensive insight into the cascade is greatly hindered by the lack of appropriate bioanalytical techniques. While the fellow has recently developed an innovative mass spectrometric method for the plasma KKS and applied in clinical studies, the tissue KKS has not yet been investigated, although the physiological action is likely exerted only in tissue. The advances in mass spectrometric imaging are currently used for metabolomics or mapping of biomolecules in tissue, but appear to be highly promising also for targeted kinin detection in the tissue KKS. The fellow with his key expertise in targeted mass spectrometric kinin quantification will use different mass spectrometric imaging techniques (DESI, MALDI, MasSpec Pen) to evaluate the tissue KKS. Hence, the TIKKS project is to first time study the presence, distribution, metabolism and overall profile of kinins in different (diseased) tissues by mass spectrometric imaging. For this purpose, various malignant tissues are examined as a main objective and subsequently extended to cardiovascular diseases and angioedema. This innovative approach will allow the fellow to uniquely investigate physiology and pathophysiology across both arms of the KKS (tissue & plasma) and therefore strengthen him on his path to his own professorship. The combined power of the innovative imaging approach and the already established mass spectrometric platform for plasma KKS will critically accelerate the discovery of promising drug targets for non-communicable diseases.

Status

TERMINATED

Call topic

HORIZON-MSCA-2021-PF-01-01

Update Date

09-02-2023
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Horizon Europe
HORIZON.1 Excellent Science
HORIZON.1.2 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
HORIZON.1.2.0 Cross-cutting call topics
HORIZON-MSCA-2021-PF-01
HORIZON-MSCA-2021-PF-01-01 MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2021