Publications by authors named "Alberto Pallavicini"

This study presents a comprehensive multimodal analytical study of an Egyptian ritual Bes-vase, of the 2nd century BCE employing cutting-edge proteomics, metabolomics, genetics techniques, and synchrotron radiation-based Fourier Transformed Infrared microSpectroscopy (SR µ-FTIR) to characterize organic residues of its content. We successfully identified the presence of various functional, bioactive, psychotropic, and medicinal substances, shedding light on the diverse components of a liquid concoction used for ritual practices in Ptolemaic Egypt. Using LC-MS/MS with a new methodological approach, we identified key proteins and metabolites, enabling the identification of botanical sources, confirmed by genetic sequences.

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Gene expression can accelerate ecological divergence by rapidly tweaking the response of an organism to novel environments, with more divergent environments exerting stronger selection and supposedly, requiring faster adaptive responses. Organisms adapted to extreme environments provide ideal systems to test this hypothesis, particularly when compared to related species with milder ecological niches. The Emperor penguin (Aptenodytes forsteri) is the only endothermic vertebrate breeding in the harsh Antarctic winter, in stark contrast with the less cold-adapted sister species, the King penguin (A.

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  • - Researchers isolated a new lectin, named hRTL, from a marine sponge, which belongs to the galectin family and shows high similarity to another galectin called CCL.
  • - hRTL is a tetramer composed of 141 amino acids and features a unique 23 amino acid signal peptide that gets cleaved after translation, differing from most galectins which usually have acetylated modifications.
  • - The hRTL lectin binds strongly to specific glycan structures and has been shown to induce cytotoxic effects in colorectal cancer cells expressing certain antigens, suggesting potential therapeutic implications.
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  • Islands serve as important evolutionary sites for creating new species but are vulnerable to environmental threats.
  • The Ponza grayling, an endangered butterfly unique to two small islands in Italy, faces challenges due to its limited habitat and declining population.
  • Researchers created a detailed reference genome for the Ponza grayling, paving the way for studying its genetic diversity and evolution, despite the difficulties in gathering certain genomic data.
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  • - SeviL, a lectin from mussels, has been shown to induce apoptosis in HeLa ovarian cancer cells and promote M1 polarization in macrophage cell lines at low concentrations.
  • - Low levels of SeviL decrease the growth of monocyte and basophil cell lines but stimulate proliferation in RAW264.7 macrophages, evidenced by changes in cell shape and up-regulation of mitochondrial proteins.
  • - Treatment with SeviL leads to increased secretion of pro-inflammatory cytokines and activation of various signaling pathways, indicating its role in regulating cell behaviors like proliferation and death in macrophages, which may impact immune responses in living organisms.
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  • Studies on bioaerosol bacterial biodiversity are important for both ecological and health perspectives, utilizing molecular methods like 16S rRNA sequencing for analysis.
  • There is a lack of standardized methods for sampling and analyzing bioaerosol DNA, making it difficult to compare results across different studies.
  • In a study at a wastewater treatment plant in Italy, different sampling methods revealed that air samples had fewer bacterial genera than wastewater samples, highlighting the need for effective sampling strategies to understand bacterial diversity better.
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The vaginal microbiota of the queen (i.e., female cat) has never been described using culture independent methods.

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, commonly known as the noble pen shell, is a marine bivalve endemic to the Mediterranean Sea. Unfortunately, due to a multifactorial disease that began affecting its populations in 2016, the species is currently facing the threat of extinction. To gain insights into the evolutionary history of before the mass mortality event (MME), and to obtain a comprehensive understanding of how evolutionary processes led to the adaptation of the species into the Mediterranean Sea, phylogenetic and phylogeographic analyses were carried out.

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Viruses are the most abundant 'biological entities' in the world's oceans. However, technical and methodological constraints limit our understanding of their diversity, particularly in benthic abyssal ecosystems (>4000 m depth). To verify advantages and limitations of analyzing virome DNA subjected either to random amplification or unamplified, we applied shotgun sequencing-by-synthesis to two sample pairs obtained from benthic abyssal sites located in the North-eastern Atlantic Ocean at ca.

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  • * Mytilectins, a type of β-trefoil lectin identified in certain mussel species, show promising properties that could aid in developing artificial lectins for biotechnological uses.
  • * This study explores the evolutionary background of mytilectins, tracing their origins and wide but uneven distribution, as well as revealing that most exhibit a complex structure combining different functional domains.
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Vibrio aestuarianus is a bacterium related to mass mortality outbreaks of the Pacific oyster, Crassostrea gigas in Europe. In this study, the role of different planktonic substrates (phytoplankton cells, marine aggregates and chitin fragments) in mediating V. aestuarianus 02/041 infection of oysters was evaluated by controlled infection experiments.

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  • Thalidomide is being used effectively to treat pediatric patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) who do not respond to standard therapies, but its mechanism of action is not fully understood.
  • The study involved ten pediatric IBD patients, using RNA sequencing to analyze the gene expression changes before and after 12 weeks of thalidomide treatment, revealing 378 differentially expressed genes.
  • Findings suggest that thalidomide impacts key signaling pathways related to calcium, cAMP, eicosanoids, and neuronal signaling, indicating its immunomodulatory effects might involve the ubiquitin-proteasome pathway.
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  • Mussels have a highly efficient innate immune system, allowing them to tolerate infections better than other marine species due to diverse antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) that vary greatly among individuals.
  • The CRP-I gene cluster in blue mussels contains about 50 genes and pseudogenes in a small region of chromosome 5 and exhibits significant gene presence/absence variation (PAV) across related species.
  • Although the synthetic CRP-I peptide sCRP-I H1 shows some biological activity, it is unlikely to function as an antimicrobial agent or protease inhibitor, but may help defend against eukaryotic parasites.
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  • A study looked at a harmful fungus that affects a lot of plants and people in the UK, focusing on its different types found in the air in places like rural and urban areas.
  • Researchers used special equipment to collect and identify the airborne fungal spores over a long period.
  • They discovered that nearby locations had similar types of fungi, and using new DNA techniques can help better understand and manage these fungi compared to traditional methods.
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  • Pore-forming toxins, particularly actinoporins, are found in animal venoms, with a notable discovery of 27 unique actinoporin-like genes (termed mytiporins) in the sea mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis.
  • Mytiporin-1, one of the characterized mytiporins, shows different properties from the typical actinoporin fragaceatoxin C, including weaker pore-forming ability and forming hexameric pores instead of octameric ones.
  • The existence and variability of mytiporins suggest they may play a significant role in the mussel's physiology and could impact their digestive processes or immune responses, indicating a strong evolutionary pressure for their
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The present study is aimed at implementing the morphological identification-free amplicon sequence variant (ASV) concept for describing meiofaunal species composition, while strongly indicating reasonable compatibility with the underlying species. A primer pair was constructed and demonstrated to PCR amplify a 470-490 bp 18S barcode from a variety of meiofaunal taxa, high throughput sequenced using the Illumina 300 × 2 bps platform. Sixteen 18S multi-species HTS assemblies were created from meiofaunal samples and merged to one assembly of ~2,150,000 reads.

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  • Real-time quantitative PCR is important for analyzing gene expression, but its accuracy depends on selecting appropriate reference genes, which is often overlooked in studies on mollusks that typically use vertebrate references.
  • This study focused on identifying stable reference genes in the bivalve mollusk Mytilus galloprovincialis by analyzing 51 RNA-seq datasets, ultimately identifying three genes and confirming the Act/Cyp-A pair as the best option for various tissues.
  • The findings are significant for future ecotoxicology and molecular studies involving Mytilus galloprovincialis, establishing a foundation for using appropriate reference genes in gene expression analyses.
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An infecting and propagating parasite relies on its innate defense system to evade the host's immune response and to survive challenges from commensal bacteria. More so for the nematode Anisakis, a marine parasite that during its life cycle encounters both vertebrate and invertebrate hosts and their highly diverse microbiotas. Although much is still unknown about how the nematode mitigates the effects of these microbiota, its antimicrobial peptides likely play an important role in its survival.

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Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) spectra of faecal samples can be obtained by adding AuNP to their methanol extracts according to the reported protocol, and display bands that are due to bilirubin-like species but also to xanthine and hypoxanthine, two metabolic products secreted by gut bacteria. A total of 27 faecal samples from three different groups, i.e.

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There are important questions surrounding the potential contribution of outdoor and indoor air quality in the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and perpetuation of COVID-19 epidemic waves. Environmental health may be a critical component of COVID-19 prevention. The public health community and health agencies should consider the evolving evidence in their recommendations and statements, and work to issue occupational guidelines.

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White to brown/beige adipocytes conversion is a possible therapeutic strategy to tackle the current obesity epidemics. While mitochondria are key for energy dissipation in brown fat, it is unknown if they can drive adipocyte browning. Here, we show that the mitochondrial cristae biogenesis protein optic atrophy 1 (Opa1) facilitates cell-autonomous adipocyte browning.

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The investigation of bacterial microbiota represents a developing research field in veterinary medicine intended to look for correlations between animal health and the balance within bacterial populations. The aim of the present work was to define the bacterial microbiota of the oral cavity of healthy sows, which had not been thoroughly described so far. In total, 22 samples of oral fluid were collected and analyzed by 16S-rRNA gene sequencing.

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The marine environment includes diverse microeukaryotic organisms that play important functional roles in the ecosystem. With molecular approaches, eukaryotic taxonomy has been improved, complementing classical analysis. In this study, DNA metabarcoding was performed to describe putative pathogenic eukaryotic microorganisms in sediment and marine water fractions collected in Galicia (NW Spain) from 2016 to 2018.

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  • The role of microbiota in bivalves is still unclear, though it may contribute to nutrition and immunity, with a focus on integrating various disciplines due to climate change impacts.
  • Current research examines methodologies for studying bivalve microbiota, compares microbiota across different bivalve species and environments, and investigates how environmental factors and host genetics influence these communities.
  • The findings suggest that host-associated microorganisms may help protect against pathogens and aid in recovery, potentially reducing disease incidence and mortality in bivalves.
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