Etruria contained one of the great early urban civilisations in the Italian peninsula during the first millennium BC, much studied from a cultural, humanities-based, perspective, but relatively little with scientific data, and rarely in combination. We have addressed the unusual location of twenty inhumations found in the sacred heart of the Etruscan city of Tarquinia, focusing on six of these as illustrative, contrasting with the typical contemporary cremations found in cemeteries on the edge of the city. The cultural evidence suggests that the six skeletons were also distinctive in their ritualization and memorialisation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMyotonic dystrophy 2 (DM2) is a genetic multi-systemic disease primarily affecting skeletal muscle. It is caused by CCTGn expansion in intron 1 of the gene, which encodes a zinc finger protein. DM2 disease has been successfully modeled in allowing the identification and validation of new pathogenic mechanisms and potential therapeutic strategies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAging progressively modifies the physiological balance of the organism increasing susceptibility to both genetic and sporadic neurodegenerative diseases. These changes include epigenetic chromatin remodeling events that may modify the transcription levels of disease-causing genes affecting neuronal survival. However, how these events interconnect is not well understood.
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