Clementina Mesaros

About

Clementina Mesaros, MS, PhD, is a Research Associate Professor of Systems Pharmacology and Translational Therapeutics at the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine. She serves as the Director of the Biomolecular Mass Spectrometry Core at the Center of Excellence in Environmental Toxicology and as Associate Director for Shared Resources at the Abramson Cancer Center. Her research interests focus on understanding pathological metabolic changes, particularly in Friedreich’s Ataxia (FRDA), and identifying biomarkers related to exposure and response to major environmental pollutants. Her group investigates how lipid metabolism is disrupted due to mitochondrial dysfunction in FRDA, a disease caused by reduced expression of frataxin, leading to neurodegeneration and cardiomyopathy. Her work includes quantifying lipid accumulation in patient tissues and cells, exploring metabolic alterations, and identifying potential biomarkers for disease progression and therapeutic intervention. Additionally, her research extends to measuring the relationship between environmental toxicants and disease, such as the involvement of toxicants in gestational diabetes, with a focus on mechanisms involving serotonin metabolism and genetic factors. Dr. Mesaros is dedicated to mentoring the next generation of analytical scientists, maintaining advanced mass spectrometry instrumentation, and supervising support staff, students, and postdoctoral fellows.

Research topics

• Internal medicine
• Medicine
• Oncology

Selected publications

• Quantitative subcellular acyl-CoA analysis reveals distinct nuclear metabolism and isoleucine-dependent histone propionylation

  Molecular Cell · 2021-12-01 · 122 citations

  articleOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Effects of systemic inflammation on relapse in early breast cancer

  npj Breast Cancer · 2021 · 37 citations

  Chronic inflammation has been a proposed mechanism of resistance to aromatase inhibitors in breast cancer. Stratifying by HER2 status, a matched case-control study from the Wellness After Breast Cancer-II cohort was performed to assess whether or not elevated serum inflammatory biomarkers (C-Reactive protein [CRP], interleukin-6 [IL-6], and serum amyloid A [SAA]) and/or the presence of a high-risk IL-6 promoter genotype were associated with recurrence of hormone receptor positive (HR+) early bre…

  DOI

• Cancer-associated fibroblasts maintain critical pancreatic cancer cell lipid homeostasis in the tumor microenvironment

  Cell Reports · 2024-11-01 · 32 citations

  articleOpen access

  Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is an aggressive malignancy with abundant cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) creating hallmark desmoplasia that limits oxygen and nutrient delivery. This study explores the importance of lipid homeostasis under stress. Exogenous unsaturated lipids, rather than de novo synthesis, sustain PDAC cell viability by relieving endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress under nutrient scarcity. Furthermore, CAFs are less hypoxic than adjacent malignant cells in vivo, nomi…

  PublisherDOI

• Commensal-derived tryptophan metabolites fortify the skin barrier: Insights from a 50-species gnotobiotic model of human skin microbiome

  Cell chemical biology · 2025-01-01 · 21 citations

  articleOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Chemoresistance of TP53 mutant acute myeloid leukemia requires the mevalonate byproduct, geranylgeranyl pyrophosphate, for induction of an adaptive stress response

  Leukemia · 2025-07-09 · 9 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Acute myeloid leukemia with mutations in TP53 ( TP53 mut AML) is fatal with a median survival of 6 months. RNA sequencing on purified AML patient samples showed that TP53 mut AML had higher expression of mevalonate pathway genes. Using novel, isogenic TP53 mut AML cell lines and primary samples, we determined that TP53 mut AML resistance to AML chemotherapy cytarabine (AraC) correlated with increased mevalonate pathway activity, a lower induction of reactive oxygen species (ROS), and a…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Ian A. Blair

  University of Pennsylvania

  431 shared

• Nathaniel W. Snyder

  94 shared

• T.M. Penning

  University of Pennsylvania

  87 shared

• Jimmy P. Xu

  85 shared

• Brian Keith

  59 shared

• Ranjana Mitra

  58 shared

• David R. Lynch

  Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

  58 shared

• David A. Potter

  58 shared

Labs

• Mesaros GroupPI

Education

• Post-doctoral Fellow, Pharmacology

  University of Pennsylvania

  2007

• PhD, Chemistry

  Case Western Reserve University

  2005

Awards & honors

• NIH S10 grant for acquisition of a new state-of-the-art LC-H…
• Best Poster Presentation Award by an undergraduate student a…

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• Craig B. Thompsonh-277
• Daniel J Raderh-236