Francesco Mantegazza - Associate Professor


Francesco Mantegazza Dimet UNIMIB Department and institution: School of Medicine and Surgery, University of Milano Bicocca
email: francesco.mantegazza@unimib.it
tel. +39 02 6448 8209
institutional profile page: UNIMIB
see also: ORCID , Researcher ID J-3324-2015, PubMed, BOA


Keywords: Nanomedicine, Nanoparticles, Nanomechanics, Single Molecule Spectroscopy, DNA-Protein Interactions, Biophysics, Atomic Force Microscopy, Magnetic Tweezers.

Main topics of the group

    Francesco Mantegazza is University Associate Professor of Applied Physics at School of Medicine and Surgery of the Milano-Bicocca University.

    His experimental scientific research activity is devoted to the study of the nanomechanical properties of single molecules and single cells. The objective is provide quantitative information about complex and unknown relevant biophysical issues, such as DNA compaction inside nucleus, surface elasticity of cancer or healthy cells, DNA superstructures, and conformation of intrinsically disordered proteins.

    The techniques employed in the Lab are Magnetic Tweezers (MT) and Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM). MT is a single molecule technique, which allows exerting forces in the range of pN on a single biomolecule. As an example, MT allows obtaining, in the different conditions, the force and the torque necessary to promote the nanomechanical melting of DNA or the force required to unfold a single protein.

    On the other hand, AFM allows acquiring topographical 3D images of the samples under investigation with nanometric resolution. In addition, AFM force spectroscopy can characterize the membrane stiffness, related for example to the neoplasticity of the cells, or the protein structure, by applying forces to proteins or polyproteins in order to unfold them.

Internal and external collaborators

Selected pubblications

    Depicting Conformational Ensembles of α-Synuclein by Single Molecule Force Spectroscopy and Native Mass Spectroscopy. Roberta Corti, Claudia A Marrano, Domenico Salerno, Stefania Brocca, Antonino Natalello, Carlo Santambrogio, Giuseppe Legname, Francesco Mantegazza, Rita Grandori and Valeria Cassina. Int J Mol Sci. 2019 Oct 19;20(20):5181. doi: 10.3390/ijms20205181


last update: June 2020