Publications by authors named "Lilijana Bizjak Mali"
is a neotenic cave salamander, endemic to the Dinaric Karst and a symbol of world natural heritage. It is classified as "vulnerable" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and is one of the EU priority species in need of strict protection. Due to inaccessibility of their natural underground habitat, scientific studies of the olm have been conducted mainly in captivity, where the amphibians are particularly susceptible to opportunistic microbial infections.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Lightless caves can harbour a wide range of living organisms. Cave animals have evolved a set of morphological, physiological, and behavioural adaptations known as troglomorphisms, enabling their survival in the perpetual darkness, narrow temperature and humidity ranges, and nutrient scarcity of the subterranean environment. In this study, we focused on adaptations of skull shape and sensory systems in the blind cave salamander, Proteus anguinus, also known as olm or simply proteus-the largest cave tetrapod and the only European amphibian living exclusively in subterranean environments.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAbstractGenome size (C-value) can affect organismal traits across levels of biological organization from tissue complexity to metabolism. Neotropical salamanders show wide variation in genome and body sizes, including several clades with miniature species. Because miniaturization imposes strong constraints on morphology and development and because genome size is strongly correlated with cell size, we hypothesize that body size has played an important role in the evolution of genome size in bolitoglossine salamanders.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFVitellogenin in the European cave salamander, Proteus anguinus: Its characterization and dynamics in a captive female as a basis for non-destructive sex identification.
Comp Biochem Physiol B Biochem Mol Biol
September 2019
Vitellogenin (Vtg) is a precursor protein of egg yolk proteins in oviparous and ovoviviparous vertebrates. Except in a case of exposure to estrogenic endocrine disruptors, Vtg is a female-specific protein and could be used as a molecular marker for sex identification. This would be especially useful in the case of the endangered European cave salamander Proteus anguinus in which sexes are indistinguishable according to external morphology, which hinders the establishment of a successful captive breeding program.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFProteus anguinus is a neotenic cave amphibian endemic to the Dinaric Karst and represents a symbol of Slovenian natural heritage. It is classified as 'Vulnerable' by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and is one of the EU priority species in need of strict protection. Due to inaccessibility of its natural underground habitat, scientific studies have been primarily conducted on Proteus in captivity where amphibians may be particularly susceptible to opportunistic microbial infections.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA major goal of genomic and reproductive biology is to understand the evolution of sex determination and sex chromosomes. Species of the 2 genera of the Salamander family Proteidae - Necturus of eastern North America, and Proteus of Southern Europe - have similar-looking karyotypes with the same chromosome number (2n = 38), which differentiates them from all other salamanders. However, Necturus possesses strongly heteromorphic X and Y sex chromosomes that Proteus lacks.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: An attractive approach in the study of human cancers is the use of transparent zebrafish (Danio rerio) embryos, which enable the visualization of cancer progression in a living animal.
Materials And Methods: We implanted mixtures of fluorescently labeled glioblastoma (GBM) cells and bonemarrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) into zebrafish embryos to study the cellular pathways of their invasion and the interactions between these cells in vivo.
Results: By developing and applying a carbocyanine-dye-compatible clearing protocol for observation of cells in deep tissues, we showed that U87 and U373 GBM cells rapidly aggregated into tumor masses in the ventricles and midbrain hemispheres of the zebrafish embryo brain, and invaded the central nervous system, often using the ventricular system and the central canal of the spinal cord.
The morphological alterations of hepatocytes of cave-dwelling salamander Proteus anguinus anguinus after food deprivation periods of one and 18 months were investigated and the concentrations of glycogen, lipids, and proteins in the liver were determined. Quantitative analyses of the hepatocyte size, the lipid droplets, the number of mitochondria, and volume densities of M and P in the hepatocytes were completed. After one month of food deprivation, the cytological changes in the hepatocytes are mainly related to the distribution and amount of glycogen, which was dispersed in the cytoplasm and failed to form clumps typical of normal liver tissue.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFor over two decades, a manufacturer of electrical capacitors disposed of its waste within the karstic hinterland of the Krupa River (Slovenia) resulting in the surroundings becomming heavily polluted with PCB. Albeit the extent of the contamination has been known since 1983 and the Krupa River has become one of the most PCB polluted river in Europe, the effects on the cave fauna of the region remain unknown. The most famous cave dweller of the Krupa hinterland is the endemic cave salamander Proteus anguinus anguinus.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOogenesis in the neotenic, cave dwelling salamander Proteus anguinus anguinus has not been studied yet, and this study provides a detailed description of the early growth of the oocytes. Early previtellogene oocytes ranging from 100 to 600 µm in diameter were examined by light and transmission electron microscopy. The oocytes were divided into two stages based on size, color, and histology.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHistological, histochemical, and ultrastructural features of the gut of the European endemic cave salamander Proteus anguinus were studied. The gut is a relatively undifferentiated muscular tube lined with a simple columnar epithelium containing numerous goblet cells. The mucosa and underlying lamina propria/submucosa are elevated into a number of high longitudinal folds projecting into the lumen.
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