The growing field called “metabolomics” detects, catalogs and quantifies the low molecular weight molecules (metabolites), produced by active, living cells under different conditions and times in their life cycles. “Metabonomics” is the study of how the metabolic profile of a complex biological system changes in response to stresses like disease. Advances in the knowledge of the metabolic and nutritional needs of different pathogenic organisms offer new potential routes for chemotherapy.
The primary goal of our research is understand the basis of host-pathogen interactions by studying the biological action of different inhibitors and other molecules such as metabolic modulators at the metabolic level and establish its relationship with changes in the protein and transcript profiles. Advances in the knowledge of the metabolic and nutritional needs of different human pathogens offer new potential routes for chemotherapy.
Our laboratory uses the liquid chromatography in tandem with mass spectrometry-based methods for metabolite analysis in human pathogens such as Plasmodium falciparum (malaria parasite). We aim to discover new mechanistic relationships between metabolite profile changes and the pathology of several human infectious diseases applying functional metabolomics approaches incorporating biochemistry, and molecular biology.

Basu I, Locker J, Cassera MB, Belbin TJ, Merino EF, Dong X, Hemeon I, Evans GB, Guha C, Schramm VL. Growth and metastases of human lung cancer are inhibited in mouse xenografts by a transition state analogue of 5'-methylthioadenosine phosphorylase. J Biol Chem. 2010 Dec 6.

Riegelhaupt PM, Cassera MB, Fröhlich RFG, Hazleton KZ, Hefter JJ, Schramm VL, Akabas MH. Transport of purines and purine salvage pathway inhibitors by the Plasmodium falciparum equilibrative nucleoside transporter PfENT1. Mol. Biochem. Parasitol. 2010, 169(1):40. PMID: 19818813.

Ho M*, Cassera MB*, Madrid DC, Ting LM, Tyler PC, Kim K, Almo SC, Schramm VL. Structural and metabolic specificity of methylthiocoformycin for malarial adenosine deaminases. Biochemistry. 2009, 48(40):9618. * Contributed equally to this work. PMID: 19728741.

Dharia NV, Singh Sidhu AB, Cassera MB, Westenberger SJ, Bopp S, Eastman RT, Plouffe D, Batalov S, Park DJ, Volkman SK, Wirth DF, Zhou Y, Fidock DA, Winzeler EA. Use of high-density tiling microarrays to identify mutations globally and elucidate mechanisms of drug resistance in Plasmodium falciparum. Genome Biol. 2009, 10:R21. PMID: 19216790.

Cassera MB, Hazleton KZ, Riegelhaupt PM, Merino EF, Luo M, Akabas MH, Schramm VL. Erythrocytic adenosine monophosphate as an alternative purine source in Plasmodium falciparum. J. Biol. Chem. 2008, 283, 32889. PMID: 18799466.

Cassera MB, Ho M, Merino EF, Burgos ES, Rinaldo-Matthis A, Almo SC, Schramm VL. A high affinity adenosine kinase in Anopheles gambiae. Biochemistry, in press.

Cassera MB, Zhang Y, Hazleton KZ, Schramm VL. Purine and pyrimidine pathways as targets in Plasmodium falciparum. Invited review for Current Topics in Medicinal Chemistry, in press.