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Papers by Giuseppe Damiani

Fems Microbiology Letters, Jun 15, 1995

The 16s rDNA of 17 strains of Azospirillum, 14 assigned to one of the known species A. amazonense... more The 16s rDNA of 17 strains of Azospirillum, 14 assigned to one of the known species A. amazonense, A. brasilense, A. halopraeferens, A. irakense and A. lipoferum, and the other three of uncertain taxonomic position, was sequenced after polymerase chain reaction amplification and analysed in order to investigate the phylogenetic relationships at the intra-generic and super-generic level. The phylogenetic analysis confirms that the genus Azospirillum constitutes a phylogenetically separate entity within the a subclass of Proteobacteria and that the five species are well defined. A. brasilense and A. lipoferum are closely related species and form one cluster together with A. halopraeferens; the pair of species A. amazonense and A. irakense forms a second cluster in which Rhodospirillum centenum is also placed.

Journal of Parasitology, Jun 1, 1993

Recently, 5 sibling species and 3 other phenotypes were identified in the genus Trichinella. Sing... more Recently, 5 sibling species and 3 other phenotypes were identified in the genus Trichinella. Single primers of arbitrary nucleotide sequence were used to produce random amplified polymorphic DNA starting from decreasing amounts of Trichinella spiralis and Trichinella britovi DNA. Reproducible amplification products from 30 pg of DNA were obtained using 1 of 6 examined primers. These fragments distinguish between 2 European Trichinella species, T. spiralis, showing a 1,350-bp band, and T. britovi, showing 400- and 1,100-bp bands. The developed procedure allows the characterization of crude DNA preparations of single muscle-stage larvae, avoiding time-consuming passages of parasites in laboratory animals.

Parasitology, Nov 1, 1993

SUMMARYThe random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) technique was successfully used to produce gen... more SUMMARYThe random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) technique was successfully used to produce genetic fingerprints distinguishing between Trichinella spiralis and Trichinella britovi. The same patterns were obtained from purified and crude DNA preparations of pooled and single muscle larvae. RAPD fingerprinting was applied to muscle larvae preserved under different conditions and recovered from different hosts. Larvae recovered from fresh and frozen meat and stored at – 20 °C for a long time or under 70% ethyl alcohol at room temperature for 30 d gave good and reproducible results. Single larvae recovered from a naturally infected wild boar and from a human biopsy gave fingerprints congruent to those obtained from T. britovi reference strains. The results prove that RAPD analysis is a quick method to distinguish between the autochthonous Trichinella species of Central-Southern Europe in less than 1 d after the detection of the infection. If necessary, the biological material can be frozen or stored under 70% ethyl alcohol at room temperature and sent to laboratories able to perform the RAPD analysis. The RAPD technique requires no prior knowledge of the molecular biology of the organism to be investigated and therefore appears to be a promising tool in parasitology for the identification of sibling species.

Molecular Ecology, Aug 1, 1993

ABSTRACT We report the rapid generation of DNA probes for several Azospirillum strains. This meth... more ABSTRACT We report the rapid generation of DNA probes for several Azospirillum strains. This method does not require any knowledge of the genetics and/or the molecular biology of the organism (genome) to be investigated. The procedure is based on the generation of random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) fingerprints using primers with an embedded restriction site. The amplification product(s) peculiar to one strain or common to two or more strains can be purified, cloned, sequenced and used as molecular probes in hybridization experiments for the detection and identification of microorganisms. We have tested this methodology in the nitrogen-fixing bacterium Azospirillum by amplyfing the total DNA extracted from several Azospirillum strains. We have used amplification bands with different specificity as molecular probes in hybridization experiments performed on amplified DNA. Results obtained have demonstrated the usefulness of this methodology for Azospirillum. Its use in microbial ecology studies as a general strategy to generate specific DNA probes is also discussed.

Parasitology, May 1, 1995

SUMMARYEight taxa have recently been proposed as being encompassed by the genus Trichinella on th... more SUMMARYEight taxa have recently been proposed as being encompassed by the genus Trichinella on the basis of allozyme and biological data. In this paper we show that an analogous 8 taxon structure for this genus results from the random amplified polymorphic DNAs (RAPDs). Five 10-mer or 20-mer primers were used under different polymerase chain reaction (PCR) conditions to produce multiband RAPD fingerprints from muscle larvae of 40 isolates of Trichinella spp. The resulting RAPD data were analysed following the numerical taxonomic approach, and the resulting classification was compared to that derived from allozyme data. The agreement found between allozymes and RAPDs, while supporting the polyspecific structure of the genus Trichinella, confirms the potential of RAPDs as a tool for the detection of cryptic species. The selected primers were tested on individual muscle larvae in an attempt to standardize a RAPD assay for the routine identification of the 8 taxa of Trichinella. Only 1 of the 5 primers yielded reproducible fingerprints from the single larvae. Using this primer, the 5 species and the 3 other taxa of the genus Trichinella can be identified in a single assay without the need for massive in vivo parasite production.

CNR, area della ricerca di Firenze, 1999

European Journal of Immunogenetics, 2001

Journal of integrative neuroscience, Jan 13, 2017

Intra and inter-cellular calcium signaling is present in all types of cells and body tissues. In ... more Intra and inter-cellular calcium signaling is present in all types of cells and body tissues. In the human brain, calcium currents and waves are related to mental activities, including emotions. We present a theoretical interpretation of these phenomena suggesting their involvement in chronic emotional patterns and in the pathology of cancer. Recent developments on biophysics, translational biology and psychoneuroendocrinoimmunology (PNEI) can support explanatory hypotheses about the link between emotional stresses and the origin and development of different types of tumor cells. Chronic stresses may cause perturbations of rhythms of the PNEI system, excessive activation of HPA axis and abnormal activation of calcium signals in somatic tissues, with deleterious effects on different parts of the body. The increasing of calcium signaling inside cells may lead to a deregulation of different pathways and epigenetic systems that promote the production of genomic mutations in a second pha...

Research in Microbiology, Mar 1, 1999

Despite the widespread application of the random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) technique, ther... more Despite the widespread application of the random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) technique, there is no experimental evidence of the molecular mechanism of random amplification starting from a complex template. To investigate this mechanism, we cloned and sequenced 23 selected RAPD bands amplified from Haemophilus influenzae Rd genomic DNA using eight decamer primers different in GC content and/or nucleotide sequence. As the whole genome sequence of H. influenzae Rd has been reported, the exact nucleotide sequence of each primer-template annealing site was identified. Results showed that, on an average, a homology of eight base pairs was involved in priming events and that the number of nonhomologous base pairings declined exponentially from the 5' end of the primer to its 3' end. The interaction between the primer and the template DNA was stabilized by the formation of secondary structures, and a perfect match of the 3' terminal region of the primer was not necessary for successful amplification. The complexity of the annealing process suggested that, in the studied reaction conditions, many primer-template annealing sites were extended in the first cycles and that differences in the efficiency of priming and replication processes led to amplification of RAPD fragments. Moreover, the distribution of the amplified regions on the H. influenzae chromosome was analyzed. © Elsevier, Paris RAPD amplification / RAPD sequence / primer-template annealing site / map position

Fractals in Biology and Medicine, 1998

Mathematics and Biosciences in Interaction, 2005

ABSTRACT The analysis of metabolic processes, gene expression patterns, and protein–protein inter... more ABSTRACT The analysis of metabolic processes, gene expression patterns, and protein–protein interactions in different organisms indicates that cellular metabolic networks have a scale-free and hierarchical topology described by power laws. The dynamics of these networks might be produced by a fractal organization of an autoregulatory loop, named metabolic hypercycle, between opposite redox processes of anabolic and catabolic types. This fractal architecture allows the formation of a long range correlated state of cellular networks which is globally regulated by a critical hub sensitive to the redox state. In prokaryotic cells this fundamental regulator is generally a two-component kinase system while in eukaryotic cells it is likely that casein kinase-2 and glycogen synthase kinase-3 play a central role in metabolism control. Both prokaryotes and eukaryotes share the same conserved sequence signatures, the PAS domain, in the main sensors of the changes in redox potential. Many experimental data support the hypothesis that the developmental pathways of cells and complex organisms are the results of conserved biological clocks based on metabolic hypercycles organized in fractal networks.

Determinism, Holism, and Complexity, 2003

Theoretical biology forum, 2011

$Research paper thumbnail of The fractal revolution: to see a world in a grain of sand$

Rivista di biologia

... Attualità biologica / News and Views 162 dependent gene expression (Rosette and Karin [1995])... more ... Attualità biologica / News and Views 162 dependent gene expression (Rosette and Karin [1995]). ... FEBS Letters 582: 2120-2127. Rosette, C. and M. Karin [1995], Cytoskeletal Control of Gene Expression: De-polymerization of Microtubules Activates NF-kappa B. J. Cell Biol. ...