Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death in Western societies. Pathological conditions such as chronic inflammation, diabetes, obesity and abnormal lipoprotein metabolism contribute to the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis, which is the underlying cause of CVD.

The research activities of Kardassis' lab are:
a) Understanding the structure, the function and the regulation of the genes that participate in the metabolism of human lipoproteins with emphasis on the High Density Lipoproteins (HDL).
b) Understand how the various atheroprotective functions of HDL are affected by chronic inflammation and well as the genetic variation in HDL
c) Elucidate the signal transduction pathways that control the expression of genes in physiological and pathological states. The emphasis is on the Transforming Growth Factor β /Smad pathway and the hormone nuclear receptor pathway.

To accomplish our goals, we are using state of the art technologies including chromatin immunoprecipitation, siRNA-mediate gene silencing, adenovirus-mediated gene transfer as well as transgenic mouse technology combined with standard gene regulation methods.

Selected Publications

Mosialou I, Zannis VI, and Kardassis D. (2010) Regulation of human apolipoprotein Μ gene expression by orphan and ligand-dependent nuclear receptors. J Biol Chem. 285: 30719-30.

Mavridou S, Venihaki M, Rassouli O, Tsatsanis C, and Kardassis D. (2010) Feedback inhibition of human scavenger receptor class B type I gene expression by glucocorticoid in adrenal and ovarian cells. Endocrinology 151: 3214-24.

Vasilaki E, Papadimitriou E, Tajadura V, Ridley AJ, Stournaras C and Kardassis D. (2010) Transcriptional regulation of the small GTPase RhoB gene by TGF β -induced signaling pathways. FASEB J. 24: 891-905.

Kardassis D, Murphy C, Fotsis T, Moustakas A, Stournaras C. (2009) Control of transforming growth factor beta signal transduction by small GTPases. FEBS J. 276: 2947-65.

Thymiakou E, Zannis VI, and Kardassis D. (2007) Physical and functional interactions between liver X receptor/retinoid X receptor and Sp1 modulate the transcriptional induction of the human ATP binding cassette transporter A1 gene by oxysterols and retinoids. Biochemistry. 46: 11473-83.