Department of Nutritional Biochemistry (140c)
Garbenstr. 30
Bio Geb. I second floor
70599 Stuttgart
0711 459 23621
luigi.marongiu@uni-hohenheim.de
Consultation hours for students:
by appointment
Secretary:
Nilza Andrade-Binder
CURRICULUM VITAE
Dr. Luigi Marongiu studied Molecular Virology at the Università Roma Tre (Italy) and worked in national microbiology reference laboratories in Italy (Spallanzani Institute, Rome), Malta (Mater Dei Hospital, Msida), and England (Imperial College, London). He completed his Ph.D. in Virology at the University College London (UCL, England) and conducted postdoctoral research in Virology at the Universities of Cambridge (Addenbrooke’s Hospital, England), Edinburgh (Roslin Institute, Scotland), and Heidelberg (Medical Faculty and Institute of Global Health, Germany). In 2021, he joined the research working group of Prof. Dr. Dr. Sascha Venturelli at the Department of Nutritional Biochemistry of the University of Hohenheim (Germany). Luigi Marongiu established the Nutritional Virology Unit (NVU) within this group, taking advantage of the favorable environment offered by the Venturelli Laboratory, which provides cutting edge know-how in tissue culture including organoids, nutritional biochemistry, and molecular biology. Additionally, the Venturelli Laboratory has a long-standing connection with the University Hospital Tübingen (Germany), including the Virotherapy Center (VCT) that has expertise in cultivating and characterizing viruses for the clinical use.
Luigi Marongiu is responsible for bio-information and statistics within the Venturelli Laboratory. He contributes to the department’s didactic activity by teaching microbiome, with a focus on the phageome (the collection of bacterial viruses present in our microbiome) and nutrition. He is the author of the book “Machine Learning Analysis of qPCR Data Using R” (Nova Science).
RESEARCH INTEREST / NUTRITIONAL VIROLOGY UNIT (NVU)
Dr. Luigi Marongiu’s research focuses on understanding how nutrients can influence microbiome changes, which can lead to various health issues, including diabetes and cancer. In particular, he seeks to determine whether non-nutritive sweeteners (NNS), which are widespread in our food, can alter the phageome. Since phages can significantly influence the bacterial growth, they are a crucial element of the microbiome.
Luigi Marongiu showed that NNS can compete with natural sugar in binding pockets of phage proteins involved in phage infection.
Docking analysis of the baseplate protein gp31 of Klebsiella phage 32. The natural ligand of this protein is maltose, but the non-nutritive sweeteners sucralose and steviol can also fit into the binding pocket, overlapping with maltose.
Phages exposed to NNS had an altered infectivity behavior compared to controls. Nutrients can significantly influence the delicate balance of our phageome, triggering a ripple effect throughout our bacteriome, immune system, and overall physiology. It’s a fascinating interplay that highlights how interconnected human health is!
The complex network of nutrition and microbiome. Non-nutritive sweeteners can (I) interfere with phage infection and (II) boost genetic exchange (horizontal gene transfer), promoting the formation of pathovars (commensal bacteria carrying virulence genes). Non-nutritive sweeteners might also (III) stabilize phages that infect commensal species and (IV) induce commensal bacteria carrying integrated phages (prophage induction). The combined effect is an increment in the prevalence of harmful bacteria in the intestinal tract, impairment of the immune response (which usually reduces the spread of harmful bacteria), and the promotion of altered cells (cancer precursors).
