Immunobiology of Infections

The team’s scientific interests include innate immunity, primarily complement activation factors via the lectin pathway. We started research in this direction with work on the late phase of endotoxic shock (anaphylactoid shock), dependent on the interaction of the MBL-MASP complex with lipopolysaccharide. Then, we undertook research aimed at assessing the importance of MBL (recently also non-MBL complement-activating collectins), ficolins and MASP proteases in infectious, cancer and autoimmune diseases and the participation of the mentioned factors in pathophysiological processes. We conduct research on mutations/polymorphisms of genes encoding the mentioned factors, their expression and its regulation, and the concentrations/activity of these factors in body fluids.
We also deal with the interaction of lectin pathway recognition factors with pro- and eukaryotic cells, their products/fragments, viral antigens, as well as the molecular basis and biological consequences of this interaction. In some studies related to both clinical aspects and the interactions of recognition factors with microorganisms, we also analyze collectins that do not activate complement, which are components of pulmonary surfactant.