Publications by authors named "Valentina Gallo"

Background: Mature T-cell neoplasms arise from the neoplastic transformation of a single T lymphocyte, and all cells in a neoplastic clone share the same V segment in the beta chain of the T-cell receptor (TCR). These segments may represent an innovative target for the development of targeted therapies.

Methods: A specific V segment of the TCR beta chain (TRBV5-1) was analyzed using bioinformatic tools, identifying three potential antigenic peptides.

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Lactoferrin (Lf) is a positively charged iron-binding glycoprotein that has piqued the scientific community's interest due to its pleiotropic behavior, exhibiting a wide range of biological activities, including antimicrobial, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, immunomodulatory, and anticancer effects. This narrative review explores the current understanding of Lf's role in cancer, focusing on the endogenously expressed human full-length and ΔLf isoforms, and the effects of treatment with exogenous human and bovine Lf. We evaluated and compared the mechanisms by which Lf influences tumorigenesis and cancer progression, focusing on its impact on key processes such as cell growth, apoptosis, angiogenesis, cell migration, and invasiveness.

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Article Synopsis
  • - The study investigates the unclear link between pesticide exposure and biological aging by systematically reviewing relevant observational studies and conducting a meta-analysis.
  • - A total of 20 studies involving over 10,000 individuals were analyzed, but the results did not show significant associations between pesticide exposure and commonly used biomarkers for biological aging, such as telomere length and epigenetic clocks.
  • - The authors highlight the need for higher-quality research that examines more biological aging markers and considers the active ingredients in pesticides to better understand their potential impacts.
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A strong correlation between the occurrence of various pathological conditions and intestinal dysbiosis is supported by a range of strong evidence. Vice versa, many pathologies have been shown, in turn, to be responsible for alterations in the gut microbiota, a condition that can worsen illness outcomes and response to therapies. For these reasons, great efforts have been made, and studies are still ongoing, to elucidate the mechanisms underlying gut microbiota alterations and to search for pharmacologic or other strategies that can effectively restore the gut microbiota.

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Background: Most neurological diseases have no curative treatment; therefore, focusing on prevention is key. Continuous research to uncover the protective and risk factors associated with different neurological diseases is crucial to successfully inform prevention strategies. eHealth has been showing promising advantages in healthcare and public health and may therefore be relevant to facilitate epidemiological studies.

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Background: Neurological disorders remain a worldwide concern due to their increasing prevalence and mortality, combined with the lack of available treatment, in most cases. Exploring protective and risk factors associated with the development of neurological disorders will allow for improving prevention strategies. However, ascertaining neurological outcomes in population-based studies can be both complex and costly.

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The use of disinfection agents in the washing processing of ready-to-eat (RTE) vegetables, especially sodium hypochlorite, is a common industrial practice performed to enhance microbiological quality. However, some studies have reported a restart of bacterial growth and a substantial increase in bacterial load during early storage associated with the use of disinfection agents, which might represent a risk for consumers. We evaluated the effect of sodium hypochlorite on bacterial growth trends during the shelf-life in , simulating the industrial procedures for RTE vegetable packaging.

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The purpose of this paper was to develop exposure estimates for repetitive sub-concussive head impacts (RSHI) for use in epidemiological analyses. We used a questionnaire to collect lifetime history of heading and other head contacts associated with training and playing football from 159 former footballers all members of the English professional football association. We used linear mixed effect regression with player as the random effect, to model the number of headers, blows to the head and head-to-head impacts as a function of potential exposure affecting factors, which were treated as the fixed effects.

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Research on the effects of engineered nanomaterials (ENMs) on mitochondria, which represent one of the main actors in cell function, highlighted effects on ROS production, gametogenesis and organellar genome replication. Specifically, the mitochondrial effects of cadmium sulfide quantum dots (CdS QDs) exposure can be observed through the variation in enzymatic kinetics at the level of the respiratory chain and also by analyzing modifications of reagent and products in term of the bonds created and disrupted during the reactions through Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). This study investigated both in intact cells and in isolated mitochondria to observe the response to CdS QDs treatment at the level of electron transport chain in the wild-type yeast and in the deletion mutant , whose function is implicated in nucleo-mitochondrial protein trafficking.

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Bacterial resistance to antimicrobials is considered a major issue worldwide. This condition may account for treatment failure of urinary tract infections, which are among the most common infections both in community and healthcare settings. Therapy against uropathogens is generally administered empirically, possibly leading to unsuccessful therapy, recurrence and development of antibiotic resistance.

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The Coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) pandemics, caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronaviruses, SARS-CoV-2, represent an unprecedented public health challenge. Beside person-to-person contagion via airborne droplets and aerosol, which is the main SARS-CoV-2's route of transmission, alternative modes, including transmission via fomites, food and food packaging, have been investigated for their potential impact on SARS-CoV-2 diffusion. In this context, several studies have demonstrated the persistence of SARS-CoV-2 RNA and, in some cases, of infectious particles on exposed fomites, food and water samples, confirming their possible role as sources of contamination and transmission.

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Food supplements should not contain substances considered unsafe or pose a health risk to consumers. In recent years illegal adulterants have been found in various functional foods without notification of their presence or amount in the labelling. In this study, a validated method was developed and applied as a screening method to detect 124 forbidden substances belonging to 13 classes of compounds in food supplements.

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Cities in the global south face dire climate impacts. It is in socioeconomically marginalized urban communities of the global south that the effects of climate change are felt most deeply. Santiago de Chile, a major mid-latitude Andean city of 7.

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Data transparency has played a key role in this pandemic. The aim of this paper is to map COVID-19 data availability and accessibility, and to rate their transparency and credibility in selected countries, by the source of information. This is used to identify knowledge gaps, and to analyse policy implications.

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Objective: This investigation aimed to guarantee the principles of transparency in public administration; to inform citizens about the time to patient access to reimbursed medicines; to assess the duration of the P&R process for the first time in the period 2018-2020; and to evaluate whether and how the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic affected the P&R activity. This study analyzed the timelines of pricing and reimbursement procedures submitted in Italy by the pharmaceutical marketing authorization holder (MAH) from 2018 to 2020.

Methods: The analysis was run through an AIFA web-based platform that collects data about P&R procedures for each step of the Italian Price and Reimbursement (P&R) procedure, including dates of the Technical Scientific Committee (CTS) and Price and Reimbursement Committee (CPR) meetings from January 2018 to December 2020.

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Coumarin is an effective treatment for primary lymphoedema, as well as lymphoedema related to breast cancer radiotherapy or surgery. However, its clinical use is limited in several countries due to the possible occurrence of hepatotoxicity, mainly in the form of mild to moderate transaminase elevation. It is worth noting that only a few cases of severe hepatotoxicity have been described in the literature, with no reported cases of liver failure.

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The work focused on the analysis of two cultivars of tomato ( L.), Aragon and Gladis, under two different treatments of silicon, Low, 2 L of 0.1 mM CaSiO and High, 0.

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Background: In order to educate the next generation of leaders to work at reverting the damaging effects of the Anthropocene, there is an increasing need to incorporate more environmental-related aspects in all teaching programmes, including the health-related. Planetary health is a complex field which can benefit from a transdisciplinary pedagogical approach. The aim of this research was to evaluate an approach working toward transdisciplinarity applied to a course of Planetary Health taught at the Bachelor degree Global Responsibility & Leadership of the University of Groningen through substantive feedback and reflections from the students.

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Hyperaccumulator plant species growing on metal-rich soils can accumulate high quantity of metals and metalloids in aerial tissues, and several proteomic studies on the molecular mechanisms at the basis of metals resistance and hyperaccumulation have been published. Hyperaccumulator are also at the basis of the phytoremediation strategy to remove metals more efficiently from polluted soils or water. and are both hyperaccumulators of metals and nano-metals.

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Usnic acid (UA) is a dibenzofuran derivative naturally present in lichens, organisms resulting from the symbiosis between a fungus and a cyanobacterium, or an alga. UA shows antimicrobial, antitumor, antioxidant, analgesic, anti-inflammatory as well as UV-protective activities. Its use as pharmacological agent is widely described in traditional medicine, and in the past few years, the product has been marketed as a food supplement for the induction of weight loss.

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COVID-19 is the global pandemic that affected our population in the past 2 years. Considerable research has been done to better understand the pathophysiology of this disease and to identify new therapeutic targets, especially for severe cases. Galectin-3 (Gal-3) is a receptor present at the surface of different cell types, namely epithelial and inflammatory cells, which has been described as a severity marker in COVID-19.

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Introduction: Population-based epidemiological studies investigating risk/protective factors are outlining prevention strategies for neurological conditions that often do not have effective treatment. However, ascertaining neurological outcomes can be a time consuming and expensive process, often requiring specialised personnel and/or equipment. Thus, collecting neurological data on a large scale has been an ongoing challenge for clinicians and researchers alike.

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