Valeria SPECCHIA - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Valeria SPECCHIA
Scientific Reports, Sep 13, 2023
Sono in corso nuovi studi di stress biologici da campi magnetici variabili nel range della radiof... more Sono in corso nuovi studi di stress biologici da campi magnetici variabili nel range della radiofrequenza LF e con intensità di centinaia di. Per raggiungere lo scopo è necessario generare correnti di qualche ampere in solenoidi di bassa induttanza. In questo lavoro sviluppiamo un circuito oscillante alimentato da un generatore di corrente/voltaggio e da un interruttore veloce per alte correnti mediante transistor di potenza 2 3055. Il solenoide produce un campo magnetico di frequenza di 230 kHz e picco di 1.4. I test sono stati condotti su moscerini di Drosophila melanogaster. Dopo 30 min. di trattamento è stata evidenziata un'alterazione della geotassi negativa dei moscerini.
Nel mondo naturale gli individui, le popolazioni e le specie si devono confrontare con variazioni... more Nel mondo naturale gli individui, le popolazioni e le specie si devono confrontare con variazioni delle condizioni ambientali. Gli organismi e le loro cellule mettono in atto un adattamento fisiologico attraverso risposte che sono immediate e reversibili. Condizioni di stress però, possono causare modificazioni a livello genomico che possono alterare processi biologici fondamentali conducendo a trasformazioni cellulari. È noto da tempo che fattori ambientali provocano condizioni di stress che possono indurre in vari organismi l'attivazione di elementi genetici mobili o elementi trasponibili (TEs) il cui movimento è tra le cause di instabilità genomica. In questo lavoro, individui di Drosophila melanogaster sono stati sottoposti a stress da radiazione RF a 900 MHz ed esaminati per l'attivazione di TEs nei tessuti germinali di entrambi i sessi. Tale stress ha causato un significativo incremento dell'attivazione di tali elementi, confermando che diversi stress ambientali possono avere come conseguenza l'instabilità dei genomi e la comparsa di mutazioni de novo dovute all'inserzione di elementi trasponibili in geni codificanti.
Polymers, Apr 21, 2023
This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative... more This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY
L'analisi dell'attivazione delle sequenze ripetute e stata condotta a seguito di un innov... more L'analisi dell'attivazione delle sequenze ripetute e stata condotta a seguito di un innovativo stato di stress in Drosophila melanogaster, un organismo eucariotico. Una specifica linea di trasmissione e stata sviluppata per indurre una nuova forma di stress in organismi viventi senza alterarne le funzioni vitali. In questo lavoro sono stati analizzati degli individui di Drosophila melanogaster, mantenuti alla frequenza di 900 MHz per alcuni giorni. Lo stu-dio ha permesso di stabilire che lo stress ha causato il mancato silenziamento di elementi ripetuti. In par-ticolare l‟azione di un campo di decine di V/m per 5 giorni ha prodotto la comparsa di cristalli costituiti dalla proteina di Stellate, che sono un sintomo chiaro del mancato silenziamento di sequenze ripetute.
Human Reproduction, Sep 4, 2021
Can a targeted whole exome sequencing (WES) on a cohort of women showing a primary ovarian insuff... more Can a targeted whole exome sequencing (WES) on a cohort of women showing a primary ovarian insufficiency (POI) phenotype at a young age, combined with a study of copy number variations, identify variants in candidate genes confirming their deleterious effect on ovarian function? SUMMARY ANSWER: This integrated approach has proved effective in identifying novel candidate genes unveiling mechanisms involved in POI pathogenesis. WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY: POI, a condition occurring in 1% of women under 40 years of age, affects women's fertility leading to a premature loss of ovarian reserve. The genetic causes of POI are highly heterogeneous and several determinants contributing to its prominent oligogenic inheritance pattern still need to be elucidated. STUDY DESIGN, SIZE, DURATION: WES screening for pathogenic variants of 41 Italian women with non-syndromic primary and early secondary amenorrhoea occurring before age 25 was replicated on another 60 POI patients, including 35 French and 25 American women, to reveal statistically significant shared variants. PARTICIPANTS/MATERIALS, SETTING, METHODS: The Italian POI patients' DNA were processed by targeted WES including 542 RefSeq genes expressed or functioning during distinct reproductive or ovarian processes (e.g. DNA repair, meiosis, oocyte maturation, folliculogenesis and menopause). Extremely rare variants were filtered and selected by means of a Fisher Exact test using several publicly available datasets. A case-control Burden test was applied to highlight the most significant genes using two ad-hoc control female cohorts. To support the obtained data, the identified genes were screened on a novel cohort of 60 Caucasian POI patients and the same casecontrol analysis was carried out. Comparative analysis of the human identified genes was performed on mouse and Drosophila melanogaster by analysing the orthologous genes in their ovarian phenotype, and two of the selected genes were fruit fly modelled to explore their role in fertility.
Genes
Fragile X syndrome is a neuro-developmental disease affecting intellectual abilities and social i... more Fragile X syndrome is a neuro-developmental disease affecting intellectual abilities and social interactions. Drosophila melanogaster represents a consolidated model to study neuronal pathways underlying this syndrome, especially because the model recapitulates complex behavioural phenotypes. Drosophila Fragile X protein, or FMRP, is required for a normal neuronal structure and for correct synaptic differentiation in both the peripheral and central nervous systems, as well as for synaptic connectivity during development of the neuronal circuits. At the molecular level, FMRP has a crucial role in RNA homeostasis, including a role in transposon RNA regulation in the gonads of D. m. Transposons are repetitive sequences regulated at both the transcriptional and post-transcriptional levels to avoid genomic instability. De-regulation of transposons in the brain in response to chromatin relaxation has previously been related to neurodegenerative events in Drosophila models. Here, we demons...
Polymers
Polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) is a biodegradable bio-based polymer synthesized by microorganisms unde... more Polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) is a biodegradable bio-based polymer synthesized by microorganisms under unfavorable conditions from agro-industrial residues as a source of carbon. These aspects make the bio-based polymer attractive for the mass production of biodegradable plastics, and a definitive replacement for petroleum-based plastics. The aim of this work was to characterize the putative PHB-producing bacterium 1B isolated from the argan soil, to identify the polymer produced, and quantify the PHB production using argan seeds waste. DNA extraction, PCR, and Sanger sequencing were conducted for the molecular identification of strain 1B; the residual biomass and the PHB quantification were measured and compared in the presence of simple sugars and pretreated argan seeds waste. The 1B growth and PHB synthesis were optimized by selecting physical and nutritional parameters: temperature, incubation time, pH, NaCl concentration, and nitrogen sources concentrations. A preliminary character...
Water
In order to halt the loss of global biodiversity and considering the United Nations Decade for Oc... more In order to halt the loss of global biodiversity and considering the United Nations Decade for Ocean Conservation Agenda, increasing efforts to improve biomonitoring programs and assessment of ecosystem health are needed. Aquatic environments are among the most complex to monitor, requiring an array of tools to assess their status and to define conservation targets. Although several parameters need to be considered for a comprehensive ecological status assessment, it is important to identify easy-to-apply high-resolution monitoring methods. Shifts in fish composition and abundance are often good indicators of ecosystem health status in relation to anthropogenic activities. However, traditional monitoring methods are strictly related to the habitat under study and cannot be applied universally. This review summarizes the importance of ecological indicators for aquatic environments subjected to anthropogenic stressors, with a particular focus on fish communities and transitional water...
Diversity
Coastal lagoons are considered important habitats both for ecological functions and biodiversity ... more Coastal lagoons are considered important habitats both for ecological functions and biodiversity worldwide. Thus, they provide relevant ecosystem services and valuable natural resources. However, coastal lagoons are highly susceptible to anthropogenic pressures that can cause biodiversity losses and require specific biomonitoring programs as well as management measures. In this research, we applied environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding to investigate the biodiversity of a poorly known Mediterranean lagoon included in the European Natura 2000 Network. We used the cytochrome oxidase I (COI) gene marker to capture the entire biodiversity of this highly diversified aquatic coastal environment. With a low sampling effort and rapid laboratory practices, a large amount of valuable biodiversity data was generated and analyzed. Interestingly, this straightforward and broad molecular surveying of biodiversity unveiled a wide variety of taxonomic groups, such as benthic macroinvertebrates, zo...
The First International Conference on “Green” Polymer Materials 2020, 2020
Bio-based plastics, i.e., non-synthetic polymers produced from renewable resources are gaining sp... more Bio-based plastics, i.e., non-synthetic polymers produced from renewable resources are gaining special attention as a feasible solution to the environmental issues caused by concerns regarding the impact of waste plastics. Furthermore, such materials can also represent an alternative to petroleum-derived polymers, due to the scarcity of this raw material in the near future. In the polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) family, polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) was the first to be synthesized and characterized. PHB soon gained great attention from industrial and academic researchers since it can be synthesized from a wide variety of available carbon sources, such as agro-industrial and domestic wastes. The aim of this original research has been the identification of the presence of PHB synthetizing bacteria in some soils in a Moroccan region and the production of the bio-based PHB. In particular, the soils of the argan fields in Taroudant were considered. Taroudant is a southwestern region of Morocco where the argan oil tree Argania spinosa is an endemic and preserved species. Starting from rhizospheric soil samples of an argan crop area, we isolated heat-resistant bacteria and obtained pure cultures from it. These bacteria present intracellular endospores stained by the Schaeffer-Fulton method. The presence of intracellular endospores is a very important starting point to verify the effective production of PHB as a compartmentalized material. Further analyses are currently ongoing to try to extract and characterize PHB granules.
Cells, 2021
The HSP90 protein is a molecular chaperone intensively studied for its role in numerous cellular ... more The HSP90 protein is a molecular chaperone intensively studied for its role in numerous cellular processes both under physiological and stress conditions. This protein acts on a wide range of substrates with a well-established role in cancer and neurological disorders. In this review, we focused on the involvement of HSP90 in the silencing of transposable elements and in the genomic integrity maintenance. The common feature of transposable elements is the potential jumping in new genomic positions, causing chromosome structure rearrangements, gene mutations, and influencing gene expression levels. The role of HSP90 in the control of these elements is evolutionarily conserved and opens new perspectives in the HSP90-related mechanisms underlying human disorders. Here, we discuss the hypothesis that its role in the piRNA pathway regulating transposons may be implicated in the onset of neurological diseases.
The environment and its stressors have an effect on the genome structure of species, affecting th... more The environment and its stressors have an effect on the genome structure of species, affecting their adaptation and evolution. Environmental stresses significantly increase the genetic variability of a population and thus lay the basis for changes in fitness and unbalances. The movement of transposable elements represents a peculiar source of this variability in response to environmental changes and anthropogenic impacts. The relationship between stress and transposition has been exemplified in studies on different model organisms. Interestingly, mutational processes and genetic variation generated from transposable elements are emerging as potential agents of rapid adaptation of invasive species. In this research, we reviewed the role of transposable elements to reshape genomes with particular regards to RNAi processes in their control and potential relationship with the invasiveness of species.
Alcuni stress ambientali, come i cambi di temperatura, possono interferire con la fertilita e la ... more Alcuni stress ambientali, come i cambi di temperatura, possono interferire con la fertilita e la vitalita degli organismi viventi. Noi abbiamo verificato gli effetti di differenti stress fisici sull’organismo modello Drosophila melanogaster. In particolare abbiamo analizzato il processo biologico di silenziamento genico delle sequenze ripetute e degli elementi genetici mobili, che sono coinvolti nella stabilita dei genomi (piRNA pathway) dopo aver sottoposto i moscerini a shock termico, a radiofrequenza di 900 MHz in modo continuo e impulsato, e ad un campo magnetico impulsato da 400 mT. Abbiamo verificato che differenti stress fisici possono indurre risposte biologiche diverse, alterando anche la struttura della cromatina dei cromosomi politenici.
Gli organismi hanno la capacita di percepire il campo magnetico terrestre e di alterare i process... more Gli organismi hanno la capacita di percepire il campo magnetico terrestre e di alterare i processi biologici in risposta ad un campo magnetico applicato. Non sono ancora chiari i meccanismi molecolari alla base della percezione del campo magnetico. In questo lavoro abbiamo dimostrato che un campo magnetico impulsato di 400mT/1Hz induce un'alterazione comportamentale in individui adulti di Drosophila melanogaster. Inoltre, il livello di espressione di tim incrementa nelle teste dei moscerini dopo l'esposizione al campo. Tim e un target del magnetorecettore cryptochrome. Questi risultati preliminari indicano una possibile relazione tra il ritmo circadiano e cryptochrome nella percezione del campo magnetico.
Polymers, 2021
The environmental issues caused by the impacts of synthetic plastics use and derived wastes are a... more The environmental issues caused by the impacts of synthetic plastics use and derived wastes are arising the attention to bio-based plastics, natural polymers produced from renewable resources, including agricultural, industrial, and domestic wastes. Bio-based plastics represent a potential alternative to petroleum-based materials, due to the insufficient availability of fossil resources in the future and the affordable low cost of renewable ones that might be consumed for the biopolymer synthesis. Among the polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA), the polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) biopolymer has been synthesized and characterized with great interest due to its wide range of industrial applications. Currently, a wide number of bacterial species from soil, activated sludge, wastewater, industrial wastes, and compost have been identified as PHB producers. This work has the purpose of isolating and characterizing PHB-producing bacteria from the agricultural soil samples of Argania spinosa in the south ...
Scientific Reports, Sep 13, 2023
Sono in corso nuovi studi di stress biologici da campi magnetici variabili nel range della radiof... more Sono in corso nuovi studi di stress biologici da campi magnetici variabili nel range della radiofrequenza LF e con intensità di centinaia di. Per raggiungere lo scopo è necessario generare correnti di qualche ampere in solenoidi di bassa induttanza. In questo lavoro sviluppiamo un circuito oscillante alimentato da un generatore di corrente/voltaggio e da un interruttore veloce per alte correnti mediante transistor di potenza 2 3055. Il solenoide produce un campo magnetico di frequenza di 230 kHz e picco di 1.4. I test sono stati condotti su moscerini di Drosophila melanogaster. Dopo 30 min. di trattamento è stata evidenziata un'alterazione della geotassi negativa dei moscerini.
Nel mondo naturale gli individui, le popolazioni e le specie si devono confrontare con variazioni... more Nel mondo naturale gli individui, le popolazioni e le specie si devono confrontare con variazioni delle condizioni ambientali. Gli organismi e le loro cellule mettono in atto un adattamento fisiologico attraverso risposte che sono immediate e reversibili. Condizioni di stress però, possono causare modificazioni a livello genomico che possono alterare processi biologici fondamentali conducendo a trasformazioni cellulari. È noto da tempo che fattori ambientali provocano condizioni di stress che possono indurre in vari organismi l'attivazione di elementi genetici mobili o elementi trasponibili (TEs) il cui movimento è tra le cause di instabilità genomica. In questo lavoro, individui di Drosophila melanogaster sono stati sottoposti a stress da radiazione RF a 900 MHz ed esaminati per l'attivazione di TEs nei tessuti germinali di entrambi i sessi. Tale stress ha causato un significativo incremento dell'attivazione di tali elementi, confermando che diversi stress ambientali possono avere come conseguenza l'instabilità dei genomi e la comparsa di mutazioni de novo dovute all'inserzione di elementi trasponibili in geni codificanti.
Polymers, Apr 21, 2023
This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative... more This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY
L'analisi dell'attivazione delle sequenze ripetute e stata condotta a seguito di un innov... more L'analisi dell'attivazione delle sequenze ripetute e stata condotta a seguito di un innovativo stato di stress in Drosophila melanogaster, un organismo eucariotico. Una specifica linea di trasmissione e stata sviluppata per indurre una nuova forma di stress in organismi viventi senza alterarne le funzioni vitali. In questo lavoro sono stati analizzati degli individui di Drosophila melanogaster, mantenuti alla frequenza di 900 MHz per alcuni giorni. Lo stu-dio ha permesso di stabilire che lo stress ha causato il mancato silenziamento di elementi ripetuti. In par-ticolare l‟azione di un campo di decine di V/m per 5 giorni ha prodotto la comparsa di cristalli costituiti dalla proteina di Stellate, che sono un sintomo chiaro del mancato silenziamento di sequenze ripetute.
Human Reproduction, Sep 4, 2021
Can a targeted whole exome sequencing (WES) on a cohort of women showing a primary ovarian insuff... more Can a targeted whole exome sequencing (WES) on a cohort of women showing a primary ovarian insufficiency (POI) phenotype at a young age, combined with a study of copy number variations, identify variants in candidate genes confirming their deleterious effect on ovarian function? SUMMARY ANSWER: This integrated approach has proved effective in identifying novel candidate genes unveiling mechanisms involved in POI pathogenesis. WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY: POI, a condition occurring in 1% of women under 40 years of age, affects women's fertility leading to a premature loss of ovarian reserve. The genetic causes of POI are highly heterogeneous and several determinants contributing to its prominent oligogenic inheritance pattern still need to be elucidated. STUDY DESIGN, SIZE, DURATION: WES screening for pathogenic variants of 41 Italian women with non-syndromic primary and early secondary amenorrhoea occurring before age 25 was replicated on another 60 POI patients, including 35 French and 25 American women, to reveal statistically significant shared variants. PARTICIPANTS/MATERIALS, SETTING, METHODS: The Italian POI patients' DNA were processed by targeted WES including 542 RefSeq genes expressed or functioning during distinct reproductive or ovarian processes (e.g. DNA repair, meiosis, oocyte maturation, folliculogenesis and menopause). Extremely rare variants were filtered and selected by means of a Fisher Exact test using several publicly available datasets. A case-control Burden test was applied to highlight the most significant genes using two ad-hoc control female cohorts. To support the obtained data, the identified genes were screened on a novel cohort of 60 Caucasian POI patients and the same casecontrol analysis was carried out. Comparative analysis of the human identified genes was performed on mouse and Drosophila melanogaster by analysing the orthologous genes in their ovarian phenotype, and two of the selected genes were fruit fly modelled to explore their role in fertility.
Genes
Fragile X syndrome is a neuro-developmental disease affecting intellectual abilities and social i... more Fragile X syndrome is a neuro-developmental disease affecting intellectual abilities and social interactions. Drosophila melanogaster represents a consolidated model to study neuronal pathways underlying this syndrome, especially because the model recapitulates complex behavioural phenotypes. Drosophila Fragile X protein, or FMRP, is required for a normal neuronal structure and for correct synaptic differentiation in both the peripheral and central nervous systems, as well as for synaptic connectivity during development of the neuronal circuits. At the molecular level, FMRP has a crucial role in RNA homeostasis, including a role in transposon RNA regulation in the gonads of D. m. Transposons are repetitive sequences regulated at both the transcriptional and post-transcriptional levels to avoid genomic instability. De-regulation of transposons in the brain in response to chromatin relaxation has previously been related to neurodegenerative events in Drosophila models. Here, we demons...
Polymers
Polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) is a biodegradable bio-based polymer synthesized by microorganisms unde... more Polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) is a biodegradable bio-based polymer synthesized by microorganisms under unfavorable conditions from agro-industrial residues as a source of carbon. These aspects make the bio-based polymer attractive for the mass production of biodegradable plastics, and a definitive replacement for petroleum-based plastics. The aim of this work was to characterize the putative PHB-producing bacterium 1B isolated from the argan soil, to identify the polymer produced, and quantify the PHB production using argan seeds waste. DNA extraction, PCR, and Sanger sequencing were conducted for the molecular identification of strain 1B; the residual biomass and the PHB quantification were measured and compared in the presence of simple sugars and pretreated argan seeds waste. The 1B growth and PHB synthesis were optimized by selecting physical and nutritional parameters: temperature, incubation time, pH, NaCl concentration, and nitrogen sources concentrations. A preliminary character...
Water
In order to halt the loss of global biodiversity and considering the United Nations Decade for Oc... more In order to halt the loss of global biodiversity and considering the United Nations Decade for Ocean Conservation Agenda, increasing efforts to improve biomonitoring programs and assessment of ecosystem health are needed. Aquatic environments are among the most complex to monitor, requiring an array of tools to assess their status and to define conservation targets. Although several parameters need to be considered for a comprehensive ecological status assessment, it is important to identify easy-to-apply high-resolution monitoring methods. Shifts in fish composition and abundance are often good indicators of ecosystem health status in relation to anthropogenic activities. However, traditional monitoring methods are strictly related to the habitat under study and cannot be applied universally. This review summarizes the importance of ecological indicators for aquatic environments subjected to anthropogenic stressors, with a particular focus on fish communities and transitional water...
Diversity
Coastal lagoons are considered important habitats both for ecological functions and biodiversity ... more Coastal lagoons are considered important habitats both for ecological functions and biodiversity worldwide. Thus, they provide relevant ecosystem services and valuable natural resources. However, coastal lagoons are highly susceptible to anthropogenic pressures that can cause biodiversity losses and require specific biomonitoring programs as well as management measures. In this research, we applied environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding to investigate the biodiversity of a poorly known Mediterranean lagoon included in the European Natura 2000 Network. We used the cytochrome oxidase I (COI) gene marker to capture the entire biodiversity of this highly diversified aquatic coastal environment. With a low sampling effort and rapid laboratory practices, a large amount of valuable biodiversity data was generated and analyzed. Interestingly, this straightforward and broad molecular surveying of biodiversity unveiled a wide variety of taxonomic groups, such as benthic macroinvertebrates, zo...
The First International Conference on “Green” Polymer Materials 2020, 2020
Bio-based plastics, i.e., non-synthetic polymers produced from renewable resources are gaining sp... more Bio-based plastics, i.e., non-synthetic polymers produced from renewable resources are gaining special attention as a feasible solution to the environmental issues caused by concerns regarding the impact of waste plastics. Furthermore, such materials can also represent an alternative to petroleum-derived polymers, due to the scarcity of this raw material in the near future. In the polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) family, polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) was the first to be synthesized and characterized. PHB soon gained great attention from industrial and academic researchers since it can be synthesized from a wide variety of available carbon sources, such as agro-industrial and domestic wastes. The aim of this original research has been the identification of the presence of PHB synthetizing bacteria in some soils in a Moroccan region and the production of the bio-based PHB. In particular, the soils of the argan fields in Taroudant were considered. Taroudant is a southwestern region of Morocco where the argan oil tree Argania spinosa is an endemic and preserved species. Starting from rhizospheric soil samples of an argan crop area, we isolated heat-resistant bacteria and obtained pure cultures from it. These bacteria present intracellular endospores stained by the Schaeffer-Fulton method. The presence of intracellular endospores is a very important starting point to verify the effective production of PHB as a compartmentalized material. Further analyses are currently ongoing to try to extract and characterize PHB granules.
Cells, 2021
The HSP90 protein is a molecular chaperone intensively studied for its role in numerous cellular ... more The HSP90 protein is a molecular chaperone intensively studied for its role in numerous cellular processes both under physiological and stress conditions. This protein acts on a wide range of substrates with a well-established role in cancer and neurological disorders. In this review, we focused on the involvement of HSP90 in the silencing of transposable elements and in the genomic integrity maintenance. The common feature of transposable elements is the potential jumping in new genomic positions, causing chromosome structure rearrangements, gene mutations, and influencing gene expression levels. The role of HSP90 in the control of these elements is evolutionarily conserved and opens new perspectives in the HSP90-related mechanisms underlying human disorders. Here, we discuss the hypothesis that its role in the piRNA pathway regulating transposons may be implicated in the onset of neurological diseases.
The environment and its stressors have an effect on the genome structure of species, affecting th... more The environment and its stressors have an effect on the genome structure of species, affecting their adaptation and evolution. Environmental stresses significantly increase the genetic variability of a population and thus lay the basis for changes in fitness and unbalances. The movement of transposable elements represents a peculiar source of this variability in response to environmental changes and anthropogenic impacts. The relationship between stress and transposition has been exemplified in studies on different model organisms. Interestingly, mutational processes and genetic variation generated from transposable elements are emerging as potential agents of rapid adaptation of invasive species. In this research, we reviewed the role of transposable elements to reshape genomes with particular regards to RNAi processes in their control and potential relationship with the invasiveness of species.
Alcuni stress ambientali, come i cambi di temperatura, possono interferire con la fertilita e la ... more Alcuni stress ambientali, come i cambi di temperatura, possono interferire con la fertilita e la vitalita degli organismi viventi. Noi abbiamo verificato gli effetti di differenti stress fisici sull’organismo modello Drosophila melanogaster. In particolare abbiamo analizzato il processo biologico di silenziamento genico delle sequenze ripetute e degli elementi genetici mobili, che sono coinvolti nella stabilita dei genomi (piRNA pathway) dopo aver sottoposto i moscerini a shock termico, a radiofrequenza di 900 MHz in modo continuo e impulsato, e ad un campo magnetico impulsato da 400 mT. Abbiamo verificato che differenti stress fisici possono indurre risposte biologiche diverse, alterando anche la struttura della cromatina dei cromosomi politenici.
Gli organismi hanno la capacita di percepire il campo magnetico terrestre e di alterare i process... more Gli organismi hanno la capacita di percepire il campo magnetico terrestre e di alterare i processi biologici in risposta ad un campo magnetico applicato. Non sono ancora chiari i meccanismi molecolari alla base della percezione del campo magnetico. In questo lavoro abbiamo dimostrato che un campo magnetico impulsato di 400mT/1Hz induce un'alterazione comportamentale in individui adulti di Drosophila melanogaster. Inoltre, il livello di espressione di tim incrementa nelle teste dei moscerini dopo l'esposizione al campo. Tim e un target del magnetorecettore cryptochrome. Questi risultati preliminari indicano una possibile relazione tra il ritmo circadiano e cryptochrome nella percezione del campo magnetico.
Polymers, 2021
The environmental issues caused by the impacts of synthetic plastics use and derived wastes are a... more The environmental issues caused by the impacts of synthetic plastics use and derived wastes are arising the attention to bio-based plastics, natural polymers produced from renewable resources, including agricultural, industrial, and domestic wastes. Bio-based plastics represent a potential alternative to petroleum-based materials, due to the insufficient availability of fossil resources in the future and the affordable low cost of renewable ones that might be consumed for the biopolymer synthesis. Among the polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA), the polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) biopolymer has been synthesized and characterized with great interest due to its wide range of industrial applications. Currently, a wide number of bacterial species from soil, activated sludge, wastewater, industrial wastes, and compost have been identified as PHB producers. This work has the purpose of isolating and characterizing PHB-producing bacteria from the agricultural soil samples of Argania spinosa in the south ...