
ACADEMIC PROFILES
SOCIAL
REPOSITORIES
CONTACTS
+39 049 827 6260
+39 049 827 6269
BIOGRAPHY
Maria Cristina Aspromonte is currently Assistant Professor (RTDa) in Biochemistry (SSD BIO/10) at the Department of Biomedical Sciences of the University of Padua (Italy).
ACADEMIC POSITION
Assistant professor
since (03/2023)
DEGREES
- 2021 – PhD in Developmental Medicine and Health Planning Sciences
University of Padova – Italy - 2015 – MSc (Laura Magistrale) in General Biology
University of Sannio – Italy - 2014 – Maestrado em Biologia Celular e Molecular (“double degree” program)
Universidade de Coimbra – Portugal - 2012 – BSc (Laura Magistrale) in Biology –
University of Sannio – Italy
LANGUAGES
English
Italian
(Upper Advanced)
(Native)
2025
Journal Articles
Maria Cristina Aspromonte; Alessio Del Conte; Roberta Polli; Demetrio Baldo; Francesco Benedicenti; Elisa Bettella; Stefania Bigoni; Stefania Boni; Claudia Ciaccio; Stefano D’Arrigo; Ilaria Donati; Elisa Granocchio; Isabella Mammi; Donatella Milani; Susanna Negrin; Margherita Nosadini; Fiorenza Soli; Franco Stanzial; Licia Turolla; Damiano Piovesan; Silvio C. E. Tosatto; Alessandra Murgia; Emanuela Leonardi
Genetic variants and phenotypic data curated for the CAGI6 intellectual disability panel challenge Journal Article
In: Human Genetics, 2025, (Cited by: 0; Open Access).
@article{SCOPUS_ID:86000084600,
title = {Genetic variants and phenotypic data curated for the CAGI6 intellectual disability panel challenge},
author = {Maria Cristina Aspromonte and Alessio Del Conte and Roberta Polli and Demetrio Baldo and Francesco Benedicenti and Elisa Bettella and Stefania Bigoni and Stefania Boni and Claudia Ciaccio and Stefano D’Arrigo and Ilaria Donati and Elisa Granocchio and Isabella Mammi and Donatella Milani and Susanna Negrin and Margherita Nosadini and Fiorenza Soli and Franco Stanzial and Licia Turolla and Damiano Piovesan and Silvio C. E. Tosatto and Alessandra Murgia and Emanuela Leonardi},
url = {https://www.scopus.com/record/display.uri?eid=2-s2.0-86000084600&origin=inward},
doi = {10.1007/s00439-025-02733-1},
year = {2025},
date = {2025-01-01},
journal = {Human Genetics},
publisher = {Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH},
abstract = {© The Author(s) 2025.Neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) are common conditions including clinically diverse and genetically heterogeneous diseases, such as intellectual disability, autism spectrum disorders, and epilepsy. The intricate genetic underpinnings of NDDs pose a formidable challenge, given their multifaceted genetic architecture and heterogeneous clinical presentations. This work delves into the intricate interplay between genetic variants and phenotypic manifestations in neurodevelopmental disorders, presenting a dataset curated for the Critical Assessment of Genome Interpretation (CAGI6) ID Panel Challenge. The CAGI6 competition serves as a platform for evaluating the efficacy of computational methods in predicting phenotypic outcomes from genetic data. In this study, a targeted gene panel sequencing has been used to investigate the genetic causes of NDDs in a cohort of 415 paediatric patients. We identified 60 pathogenic and 49 likely pathogenic variants in 102 individuals that accounted for 25% of NDD cases in the cohort. The most mutated genes were ANKRD11, MECP2, ARID1B, ASH1L, CHD8, KDM5C, MED12 and PTCHD1 The majority of pathogenic variants were de novo, with some inherited from mildly affected parents. Loss-of-function variants were the most common type of pathogenic variant. In silico analysis tools were used to assess the potential impact of variants on splicing and structural/functional effects of missense variants. The study highlights the challenges in variant interpretation especially in cases with atypical phenotypic manifestations. Overall, this study provides valuable insights into the genetic causes of NDDs and emphasises the importance of understanding the underlying genetic factors for accurate diagnosis, and intervention development in neurodevelopmental conditions.},
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Maria Cristina Aspromonte; Alessio Del Conte; Shaowen Zhu; Wuwei Tan; Yang Shen; Yexian Zhang; Qi Li; Maggie Haitian Wang; Giulia Babbi; Samuele Bovo; Pier Luigi Martelli; Rita Casadio; Azza Althagafi; Sumyyah Toonsi; Maxat Kulmanov; Robert Hoehndorf; Panagiotis Katsonis; Amanda Williams; Olivier Lichtarge; Su Xian; Wesley Surento; Vikas Pejaver; Sean D. Mooney; Uma Sunderam; Rajgopal Srinivasan; Alessandra Murgia; Damiano Piovesan; Silvio C. E. Tosatto; Emanuela Leonardi
CAGI6 ID panel challenge: assessment of phenotype and variant predictions in 415 children with neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) Journal Article
In: Human Genetics, 2025, (Cited by: 1; Open Access).
@article{SCOPUS_ID:85217180047,
title = {CAGI6 ID panel challenge: assessment of phenotype and variant predictions in 415 children with neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs)},
author = {Maria Cristina Aspromonte and Alessio Del Conte and Shaowen Zhu and Wuwei Tan and Yang Shen and Yexian Zhang and Qi Li and Maggie Haitian Wang and Giulia Babbi and Samuele Bovo and Pier Luigi Martelli and Rita Casadio and Azza Althagafi and Sumyyah Toonsi and Maxat Kulmanov and Robert Hoehndorf and Panagiotis Katsonis and Amanda Williams and Olivier Lichtarge and Su Xian and Wesley Surento and Vikas Pejaver and Sean D. Mooney and Uma Sunderam and Rajgopal Srinivasan and Alessandra Murgia and Damiano Piovesan and Silvio C. E. Tosatto and Emanuela Leonardi},
url = {https://www.scopus.com/record/display.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85217180047&origin=inward},
doi = {10.1007/s00439-024-02722-w},
year = {2025},
date = {2025-01-01},
journal = {Human Genetics},
publisher = {Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH},
abstract = {© The Author(s) 2025.The Genetics of Neurodevelopmental Disorders Lab in Padua provided a new intellectual disability (ID) Panel challenge for computational methods to predict patient phenotypes and their causal variants in the context of the Critical Assessment of the Genome Interpretation, 6th edition (CAGI6). Eight research teams submitted a total of 30 models to predict phenotypes based on the sequences of 74 genes (VCF format) in 415 pediatric patients affected by Neurodevelopmental Disorders (NDDs). NDDs are clinically and genetically heterogeneous conditions, with onset in infant age. Here, we assess the ability and accuracy of computational methods to predict comorbid phenotypes based on clinical features described in each patient and their causal variants. We also evaluated predictions for possible genetic causes in patients without a clear genetic diagnosis. Like the previous ID Panel challenge in CAGI5, seven clinical features (ID, ASD, ataxia, epilepsy, microcephaly, macrocephaly, hypotonia), and variants (Pathogenic/Likely Pathogenic, Variants of Uncertain Significance and Risk Factors) were provided. The phenotypic traits and variant data of 150 patients from the CAGI5 ID Panel Challenge were provided as training set for predictors. The CAGI6 challenge confirms CAGI5 results that predicting phenotypes from gene panel data is highly challenging, with AUC values close to random, and no method able to predict relevant variants with both high accuracy and precision. However, a significant improvement is noted for the best method, with recall increasing from 66% to 82%. Several groups also successfully predicted difficult-to-detect variants, emphasizing the importance of variants initially excluded by the Padua NDD Lab.},
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Damiano Piovesan; Alessio Del Conte; Mahta Mehdiabadi; Maria Cristina Aspromonte; Matthias Blum; Giulio Tesei; Sören Bülow; Kresten Lindorff-Larsen; Silvio C. E. Tosatto
MOBIDB in 2025: integrating ensemble properties and function annotations for intrinsically disordered proteins Journal Article
In: Nucleic Acids Research, vol. 53, no. D1, pp. D495-D503, 2025, (Cited by: 3; Open Access).
@article{SCOPUS_ID:85213063415,
title = {MOBIDB in 2025: integrating ensemble properties and function annotations for intrinsically disordered proteins},
author = {Damiano Piovesan and Alessio Del Conte and Mahta Mehdiabadi and Maria Cristina Aspromonte and Matthias Blum and Giulio Tesei and Sören Bülow and Kresten Lindorff-Larsen and Silvio C. E. Tosatto},
url = {https://www.scopus.com/record/display.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85213063415&origin=inward},
doi = {10.1093/nar/gkae969},
year = {2025},
date = {2025-01-01},
journal = {Nucleic Acids Research},
volume = {53},
number = {D1},
pages = {D495-D503},
publisher = {Oxford University Press},
abstract = {© The Author(s) 2024. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Nucleic Acids Research.The MobiDB database (URL: https://mobidb.org/) aims to provide structural and functional information about intrinsic protein disorder, aggregating annotations from the literature, experimental data, and predictions for all known protein sequences. Here, we describe the improvements made to our resource to capture more information, simplify access to the aggregated data, and increase documentation of all MobiDB features. Compared to the previous release, all underlying pipeline modules were updated. The prediction module is ten times faster and can detect if a predicted disordered region is structurally extended or compact. The PDB component is now able to process large cryo-EM structures extending the number of processed entries. The entry page has been restyled to highlight functional aspects of disorder and all graphical modules have been completely reimplemented for better flexibility and faster rendering. The server has been improved to optimise bulk downloads. Annotation provenance has been standardised by adopting ECO terms. Finally, we propagated disorder function (IDPO and GO terms) from the DisProt database exploiting sequence similarity and protein embeddings. These improvements, along with the addition of comprehensive training material, offer a more intuitive interface and novel functional knowledge about intrinsic disorder.},
note = {Cited by: 3; Open Access},
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2024
Journal Articles
Federica Quaglia; Anastasia Chasapi; Maria Victoria Nugnes; Maria Cristina Aspromonte; Emanuela Leonardi; Damiano Piovesan; Silvio C. E. Tosatto
Best practices for the manual curation of intrinsically disordered proteins in DisProt Journal Article
In: Database, vol. 2024, 2024, (Cited by: 1; Open Access).
@article{SCOPUS_ID:85188297172,
title = {Best practices for the manual curation of intrinsically disordered proteins in DisProt},
author = {Federica Quaglia and Anastasia Chasapi and Maria Victoria Nugnes and Maria Cristina Aspromonte and Emanuela Leonardi and Damiano Piovesan and Silvio C. E. Tosatto},
url = {https://www.scopus.com/record/display.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85188297172&origin=inward},
doi = {10.1093/database/baae009},
year = {2024},
date = {2024-01-01},
journal = {Database},
volume = {2024},
publisher = {Oxford University Press},
abstract = {© The Author(s) 2024. Published by Oxford University Press.The DisProt database is a resource containing manually curated data on experimentally validated intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) and intrinsically disordered regions (IDRs) from the literature. Developed in 2005, its primary goal was to collect structural and functional information into proteins that lack a fixed three-dimensional structure.Today, DisProt has evolved into a major repository that not only collects experimental data but also contributes to our understanding of the IDPs/IDRs roles in various biological processes, such as autophagy or the life cycle mechanisms in viruses or their involvement in diseases (such as cancer and neurodevelopmental disorders). DisProt offers detailed information on the structural states of IDPs/IDRs, including state transitions, interactions and their functions, all provided as curated annotations. One of the central activities of DisProt is the meticulous curation of experimental data from the literature. For this reason, to ensure that every expert and volunteer curator possesses the requisite knowledge for data evaluation, collection and integration, training courses and curation materials are available. However, biocuration guidelines concur on the importance of developing robust guidelines that not only provide critical information about data consistency but also ensure data acquisition.This guideline aims to provide both biocurators and external users with best practices for manually curating IDPs and IDRs in DisProt. It describes every step of the literature curation process and provides use cases of IDP curation within DisProt.},
note = {Cited by: 1; Open Access},
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Hamidreza Ghafouri; Tamas Lazar; Alessio Del Conte; Luiggi G. Tenorio Ku; Peter Tompa; Silvio C. E. Tosatto; Alexander Miguel Monzon; Maria C. Aspromonte; Pau Bernadó; Belén Chaves-Arquero; Lucia Beatriz Chemes; Damiano Clementel; Tiago N. Cordeiro; Carlos A. Elena-Real; Michael Feig; Isabella C. Felli; Carlo Ferrari; Julie D. Forman-Kay; Tiago Gomes; Frank Gondelaud; Claudiu C. Gradinaru; Tâp Ha-Duong; Teresa Head-Gordon; Pétur O. Heidarsson; Giacomo Janson; Gunnar Jeschke; Emanuela Leonardi; Zi Hao Liu; Sonia Longhi; Xamuel L. Lund; Maria J. Macias; Pau Martin-Malpartida; Davide Mercadante; Assia Mouhand; Gabor Nagy; María Victoria Nugnes; José Manuel Pérez-Cañadillas; Giulia Pesce; Roberta Pierattelli; Damiano Piovesan; Federica Quaglia; Sylvie Ricard-Blum; Paul Robustelli; Amin Sagar; Edoardo Salladini; Lucile Sénicourt; Nathalie Sibille; João M. C. Teixeira; Thomas E. Tsangaris; Mihaly Varadi
PED in 2024: improving the community deposition of structural ensembles for intrinsically disordered proteins Journal Article
In: Nucleic Acids Research, vol. 52, no. D1, pp. D536-D544, 2024, (Cited by: 19; Open Access).
@article{SCOPUS_ID:85181761325,
title = {PED in 2024: improving the community deposition of structural ensembles for intrinsically disordered proteins},
author = {Hamidreza Ghafouri and Tamas Lazar and Alessio Del Conte and Luiggi G. Tenorio Ku and Peter Tompa and Silvio C. E. Tosatto and Alexander Miguel Monzon and Maria C. Aspromonte and Pau Bernadó and Belén Chaves-Arquero and Lucia Beatriz Chemes and Damiano Clementel and Tiago N. Cordeiro and Carlos A. Elena-Real and Michael Feig and Isabella C. Felli and Carlo Ferrari and Julie D. Forman-Kay and Tiago Gomes and Frank Gondelaud and Claudiu C. Gradinaru and Tâp Ha-Duong and Teresa Head-Gordon and Pétur O. Heidarsson and Giacomo Janson and Gunnar Jeschke and Emanuela Leonardi and Zi Hao Liu and Sonia Longhi and Xamuel L. Lund and Maria J. Macias and Pau Martin-Malpartida and Davide Mercadante and Assia Mouhand and Gabor Nagy and María Victoria Nugnes and José Manuel Pérez-Cañadillas and Giulia Pesce and Roberta Pierattelli and Damiano Piovesan and Federica Quaglia and Sylvie Ricard-Blum and Paul Robustelli and Amin Sagar and Edoardo Salladini and Lucile Sénicourt and Nathalie Sibille and João M. C. Teixeira and Thomas E. Tsangaris and Mihaly Varadi},
url = {https://www.scopus.com/record/display.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85181761325&origin=inward},
doi = {10.1093/nar/gkad947},
year = {2024},
date = {2024-01-01},
journal = {Nucleic Acids Research},
volume = {52},
number = {D1},
pages = {D536-D544},
publisher = {Oxford University Press},
abstract = {© The Author(s) 2023. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Nucleic Acids Research.The Protein Ensemble Database (PED) (URL: https://proteinensemble.org) is the primary resource for depositing structural ensembles of intrinsically disordered proteins. This updated version of PED reflects advancements in the field, denoting a continual expansion with a total of 461 entries and 538 ensembles, including those generated without explicit experimental data through novel machine learning (ML) techniques. With this significant increment in the number of ensembles, a few yet-unprecedented new entries entered the database, including those also determined or refined by electron paramagnetic resonance or circular dichroism data. In addition, PED was enriched with several new features, including a novel deposition service, improved user interface, new database cross-referencing options and integration with the 3D-Beacons network—all representing efforts to improve the FAIRness of the database. Foreseeably, PED will keep growing in size and expanding with new types of ensembles generated by accurate and fast ML-based generative models and coarse-grained simulations. Therefore, among future efforts, priority will be given to further develop the database to be compatible with ensembles modeled at a coarse-grained level.},
note = {Cited by: 19; Open Access},
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