Bio:
Dr. Benedetta Coppe earned her Master’s degree in Functional Genomics from the University of Trieste, Italy, in 2018, completing her thesis at the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) in Barcelona in the laboratory of Dr. Nuria Montserrat. She obtained her Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences from the University of Bern, Switzerland, in 2023, in the lab of Prof. Dr. Nadia Mercader. During her doctoral studies, she was also a visiting researcher at the Spanish National Centre for Cardiovascular Research (CNIC) in Madrid, Spain. She continued as a postdoctoral researcher in Prof. Dr. Nadia Mercader’s laboratory from 2024 to early 2026. Since April 2026, she has been a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Prof. Dr. Nicola Iovino at the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics (MPI-IE) in Freiburg, Germany.
Abstract:
Congenital heart disease often requires early-life cardiac surgery, yet its long-term systemic effects, particularly on reproduction, remain poorly understood. This project investigates whether neonatal cardiac injury can influence the male reproductive system, influencing the transmitted information to future generations. Previous work showed that male mice subjected to neonatal cardiac injury generate offspring with altered cardiac traits, suggesting intergenerational inheritance of paternal injury-related information.
Using a mouse model of neonatal cardiac cryoinjury, testes were analysed both shortly after injury and in adulthood. Bulk RNA sequencing revealed a rapid but transient inflammatory response in the testes 24 hours post-injury, with upregulation of immune-related genes and downregulation of spermatogenesis-associated pathways. These transcriptional changes resolved in adulthood, indicating no chronic inflammation. However, persistent alterations in chromatin accessibility across germ cell populations were maintained in adulthood. These changes were associated with pathways regulating spermatogenesis, chromatin organisation, and inflammatory signaling.
Overall, these findings demonstrate that neonatal cardiac injury induces transient inflammation and long-lasting epigenetic reprogramming in the male germline, providing a potential mechanism for the intergenerational transmission of cardiac injury effects.
Host: Prof. Dr. Thomas Marti, Oncology-Thoracic Malignancies (OTM), Department for BioMedical Research, University of Bern & president of the Johanna Dürmüller-Bol DBMR Research Award 2025 committee.
The DBMR Research Conference takes place from 5 pm - 6 pm.
