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Marlies Meisel Ph.D.

  • Assistant Professor, Department of Immunology
  • PMI Graduate Faculty

    Education & Training

  • University of Chicago, USA – Postdoc (2013-2018)
  • Medical University Innsbruck, Austria - Ph.D. (2012)
  • Nutritional Sciences at the University of Vienna, Austria - M.S. (2007)
Representative Publications
  1. Bender M#, McPherson A#, Phelps C, Pandey S, Laughlin C, Shapira J, Medina Sanchez L, Rana M, Richie T, Mims T, Gocher-Demske A, Cervantes-Barragan L, Mullett S, Gelhaus S, Bruno T, Cannon N, McCulloch J, Vignali D, Hinterleitner R, Joglekar A, Pierre J, Lee S, Davar D, Zarour H and Meisel M. Dietary tryptophan metabolite released by intratumoral Lactobacillus reuteri facilitates immune checkpoint inhibitor treatment. Cell 2023 Apr 4;S0092-8674(23)00271-4.  #contributed equally; (IF: 66.9). Highlighted in Cell, Nature Immunology, Nature Reviews Immunology, The Innovation (IF: 32.1; Cell Press Journal), Medical News Today and various other news and media outlets.
  2. Pandey SP, Bender MJ, McPherson AC, Phelps CM, Sanchez LM, Rana M, Hedden L, Sangani KA, Chen L, Shapira JH, Siller M, Goel C, Verdú EF, Jabri B, Chang A, Chandran UR, Mullett SJ, Wendell SG, Singhi AD, Tilstra JS, Pierre JF, Arteel GE, Hinterleitner R, Meisel M. Tet2 deficiency drives liver microbiome dysbiosis triggering Tc1 cell mediated autoimmune hepatitis. Cell Host Microbe 2022 May 27; S1931-3128(22); (PMID: 35658976), (IF: 31.3). Highlighted in Cell Host Microbe.
  3. Phelps C#, Shapira J#, Laughlin C, and Meisel M. Detection of viable commensal bacteria in murine melanoma tumors by culturomics. STAR Protocols 2023 Aug 13;4(3):102492 #contributed equally; (IF: 1.5).
  4. Meisel M#, Hinterleitner R#, Pacis A, Chen L, Earley ZM, Mayassi T, Pierre JF, Ernest JD, Galipeau HJ, Thuille N, Bouziat R, Buscarlet M, Ringus DL, Wang Y, Li Y, Dinh V, Kim SM, McDonald BD, Zurenski MA, Musch MW, Furtado G, Lira S, Baier G, Chang EB, Eren MA, Weber CR, Busque L, Godley LA, Verdú EF, Barreiro LB, Jabri B. Microbial signals drive pre-leukaemic myeloproliferation in a Tet2-deficient host. Nature 2018 May;557(7706):580-584. # contributed equally. (IF:69.5). Highlighted in Cancer Discovery, The Hematologist, Science Daily and various other news and media outlets.
  5. Meisel M#, Caminero A#, Jabri B, and Verdu E. Mechanisms by which gut microorganisms influence food sensitivities. NATURE REVIEWS GASTROENTEROLOGY & HEPATOLOGY (IF 73.08); 2018 Sep 13; 16(1):7-18, # contributed equally
  6. A. McPherson#, S. Pandey#, M. Bender and M. Meisel. Systemic immunoregulatory consequences of gut bacterial translocation. Trends in Immunology 2021 Jan 6: S1471-4906(20)30286-6; #contributed equally (invited review) (IF 19.7)
  7. Bertrand Routy….Guido Kroemer, Florent Malard, Kathy D. McCoy, Marlies Meisel, Sumanta Pal, Ze’ev Ronai, Eran Segal, Gregory D. Sepich-Poore, Fyza Shaikh, Randy F. Sweis, Giorgio Trinchieri, Marcel van den Brink, Rinse K. Weersma, Katrine Whiteson, Liping Zhao, Jennifer McQuade, Hassane Zarour, Laurence Zitvogel. Melanoma and Microbiota: Current understanding and future directions, Microbiome consortium. Perspective, Cancer Cell, DEC 2023 (IF 50.3)
  8. Meisel M, Mayassi, T, Fehlner-Peach H, Koval JC, O'Brien SL, Hinterleitner R, Lesko K, Kim S, Bouziat R, Chen L, Weber CR, Mazmanian SK, Jabri B, Antonopoulos DA. Interleukin-15 promotes intestinal dysbiosis with butyrate deficiency associated with increased susceptibility to colitis. ISMI J 2017 Jan;11(1):15-30; (IF: 11.2)
  9. C. Phelps and M. Meisel. Team victory, yellow helmets for a computational tour de force. Cell. 2022 Sep 15;185(19):3459-3461; (IF 66.9). Preview article written for Cell, highlighting a study by the international multiple sclerosis (MS) microbiome study consortium characterizing the composition and function of the gut microbiota in MS patients.
  10. A. McPherson and M. Meisel. Microbiota opens new tab in the Wnt-ernet. Immunity 2022 Dec 13; 55(12): 2219–2222; (IF: 43.5). Preview article for Immunity, highlighting a study Kim et al. 2022 in Immunity that showed that mucosal macrophages are critical components of the intestinal stem cell niche.
  11. Minter MR, Meisel M#, Hinterleitner R#, Zhang C#, Leone V, Zhang X, Oyler-Castrillo P, Musch MW, Jabri B, Chang EB, Tanzi RE, Sisodia SS. Antibiotic-induced perturbations in microbial diversity during development alters amyloid pathology in APPSWE/PS1ΔE9 murine model of Alzheimer’s disease. Scientific Reports 2017 Sep 5;7(1):10411 # contributed equally; (IF:5)
  12. Bunker JJ, Flynn TM, Koval JC, Shaw DG, Meisel M, McDonald BD, Ishizuka IE, Dent AL, Wilson PC, Jabri B, Antonopoulos DA, and Bendelac A. Innate and Adaptive Humoral Responses Coat Distinct Commensal Bacteria with Immunoglobulin A. Immunity 2015 Sept 15; 43(1):1-13; (IF: 43.5)
  13. Galipeau H*, McCarville JL*, Huebener S, Litwin O, Meisel M, Jabri B, Murray JA, Jordana M, Alaedini A, Chirdo FG, Verdu EF. Intestinal microbiota modulates gluten-induced immunopathology in humanized mice. The American Journal of Pathology 2015 Nov; 185 (11):2970-2982 * contributed equally; (IF: 5.8)
  14. Bunker J, Erickson S, Flynn T, Henry-Dunand C, Koval J, Meisel M, Jabri B, Antonopoulos D, Wilson P, and Bendelac A. Natural polyreactive IgA antibodies coat the intestinal microbiota. Science, 2017 Oct 20; 358(6361); (IF: 63.7)
  15. Meisel M, Hermann-Kleiter N, Hinterleitner R, Gruber T, Wachowicz K, Pfeifhofer-Obermair C, Fresser F, Leitges M, Soldani C, Viola A, Kaminski S, Baier G. The kinase PKCalpha selectively upregulates interleukin-17A during Th17 cell immune responses. Immunity 2013 Jan 24;38(1):41-52; (IF: 43.5)
  16. Wagner KH, Reichhold S, Hölzl C, Knasmüller S, Nics L, Meisel M, Neubauer O. Well-trained, healthy triathletes experience no adverse health risks regarding oxidative stress and DNA damage by participating in an ultra-endurance event. Toxicology 2010 Dec 5;278(2):211-6; (IF: 4.6)

Complete list of publications

Research Interests

Project 1: Define mechanisms of how the microbiota enhances cancer immunotherapy in gut-distal cancer

We recently uncovered that microbial signals drives myeloid cancer (Meisel and Hinterleitner et al., Nature 2018), highlighting the strong immunomodulatory potential of the gut microbiota on systemic immunity in the context of cancer. In my own lab, we recently discovered a mechanism of how the probiotic bacterium L. reuteri by using dietary tryptophan enhances CD8 T cell mediated cancer immunotherapy efficacy in melanoma (Bender et al., Cell 2023). By deploying a novel approach to profile the tumor microbiome at gut distal sites (Phelps et al., Star Protocols 2023) my lab performed culturomics on tumors and tissues and demonstrated for the first time that the tumor microbiome plays a direct role in enhancing antitumor immunity in melanoma.

In ongoing work we are excited to continue to test if there are other bacteria that are associated with response to cancer immunotherapy treatment in humans that enhance antitumor CD8 T cell immunity in preclinical models.

Project 2: Exploit the mechanism of how exercise enhance cancer immunotherapy efficacy

Physical inactivity is one of the leading risk factors for noncommunicable diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases, autoimmunity and cancer worldwide. There is numerous epidemiological and pre-clinical evidence of a beneficial role of physical exercise in preventing the development, increasing survival and enhancing the efficacy of cancer immunotherapy.  While exercise is considered an integral component of “standard or care” therapy in primary and secondary prevention of cancer the mechanisms of how physical exercise mediates antitumor effects remain obscure.

In my lab we are exploring the mechanisms of how exercise enhances cancer immunotherapy efficacy- spoiler alert- we uncovered that the gut microbiota plays a critical role in exercise-enhancement of cancer immunotherapy efficacy.

Project 3: Explore the role of the tumor microbiome in melanoma.

Deploying our recent culturomics approach (Phelps et al., Star Protocols 2023), we are profiling the tumor microbiome of human melanoma patients that either responded or failed to respond to cancer immunotherapy.

In this project we are performing multi-omics (metabolomics, culturomics and scRNSseq) on human melanoma tumors and will test isolated bacteria and their metabolites in their ability to tune systemic immunity in pre-clinical cancer models.

Project 4: Define the mechanism of how the liver microbiome contributes to the etiopathogenesis of autoimmune hepatitis

Highlighting the intriguing dichotomy of microbes on systemic immunity, my lab showed that the same probiotic bacterium L. reuteri aggravates CD8 T cell mediated autoimmunity in a genetically susceptible host (Pandey et al., Cell Host microbe 2022).

In this project we are dissecting the link between the local liver microbiome and the microbial metabolites that are linked with CD8 T cell mediated autoimmune hepatitis.

Website: https://www.meisel-hinterleitner-lab.com

Twitter: @MeiselLab