Polydom deficient mouse shows severe edema in skin and thoracic cavity (right). Wild-type mouse embryo is shown in left panel.

Lymphatic vessels form a circulatory system that plays an important role in controlling the amount of fluid in tissues, and allowing the immune system to identify and target threats. When the lymphatic system malfunctions, fluid accumulates in tissues, producing a condition known as edema. This can be fatal; for example, lung edema can cause respiratory arrest. The molecular mechanisms underlying lymphatic system development are not fully understood, with particular uncertainty surrounding the later stages of development, in which the primitive system is remodeled to produce a mature, functional lymphatic vasculature.

Examples of morph sequence stimuli from low intensity (left) to high intensity (right). From top to bottom; male adult angry sequence, female adult surprise sequence, male child happy sequence, female child sad sequence

Young people with autism spectrum conditions (ASC) have difficulties recognising and distinguishing between different facial expressions, according to research from one of the largest studies to look at emotion recognition in children and adolescents with ASC. The University of Bristol findings are published today [31 Mar 2017] in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. A team from Bristol’s School of Experimental Psychology aimed to find out whether six basic facial expressions differing in intensity are challenging for young people with autism to recognise.

Land snails are generally believed to be ground-dwelling creatures, preferring dark and humid places, like the forest floor, or a suburban garden. So why do we find some species of snails in the tops of trees, where it is relatively light and dry? Associate Professor Ikuyo Saeki from the University of Tsukuba, Japan and her colleagues from Hokkaido University and other institutions, have performed some fascinating research to find out why. Prof. Saeki wanted to know what drives animals to leave the ground, defying gravity to live in the tree tops. Is it because there are fewer predators, or less competition with other animals? Is there more, or better, food? Some studies suggest that tree-dwelling species live longer than ground dwellers, but this idea, along with the others, is not easy to test in a natural environment. That’s when Prof. Saeki and her colleagues decided to enlist the help of a Japanese tree-climbing land snail.

Bleached Acropora colony photographed in July 2015. A new study finds that a 2°C rise in the sea surface temperature of the South China Sea in June 2015 was amplified to produce a 6°C rise on the Dongsha Atoll, killing approximately 40 percent of the resident coral community. (Photo by Thomas DeCarlo, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

In the South China Sea, a 2°C rise in the sea surface temperature in June 2015 was amplified to produce a 6°C rise on Dongsha Atoll, a shallow coral reef ecosystem, killing approximately 40 percent of the resident coral community according to a study published in Scientific Reports this week. Wind and waves churn the sea, flushing shallow-water coral reefs with seawater from the open ocean to help them stay cool. But according to new research from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), when the weather turns still and these natural cooling mechanisms subside, just a few degrees of ocean warming can prove lethal to the corals that live there.

Increasing the woody biomass supply sustainably, continuously and at acceptable prices is a huge challenge . It’s not always easy to see the wood from trees when dealing with complex challenges in energy policy. However, Europe is increasingly finding in its forests a significant source of renewable energy that could help the region move away from fossil fuel dependency. Known collectively as woody biomass, these by-products of forest management are also useful raw materials to be crafted into wood products, turned into energy or converted into mulch and erosion control materials.

During replication, the two strands are separated. Each strand of the original DNA molecule then serves as a template for the production of its complementary counterpart (Figure: Wikimedia Commons).

Analyzing DNA is useful for a number of vital applications. This includes diagnosis and monitoring of diseases, identification of criminals, and studying the function of a targeted segment of DNA. However, methods used for analyses often require more DNA than may be available in a typical sample. ‘Therefore, amplification is necessary, but not always straightforward. The most widely used amplification or photocopying method is the polymerase chain reaction (PCR). A new PCR method could help the amplification process, and thus develop robust assays that previously would not have been possible. Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is a molecule found in the nucleus of cells and carries the 'instructions' for the development and functioning of living organisms. It is often compared to a set of blueprints since it contains the instructions needed to build cells. These instructions are divided into segments along a strand of DNA.

 
Il gruppo di ricerca dell'Università di Tor Vergata, guidato dalla Dr.ssa Francesca Gioia Klinger e coordinato dal Prof. Massimo De Felici ha scoperto una nuova funzione dell’ormone luteinizzante, LH, nella donna che potrebbe essere utilizzata per la preservazione della fertilità delle donne che si sottopongono a chemioterapia e prolungare la funzionalità dell’ovaio che termina con la menopausa. Fino ad oggi si pensava che le funzioni dell’LH, secreto dall’ipofisi, fossero nella donna in età fertile, l’induzione dell’ovulazione e il mantenimento del corpo luteo, necessario per le prime fasi di sviluppo dell’embrione. La ricerca in oggetto ha dimostrato che l’LH è in grado di difendere i follicoli primordiali (che contengono gli ovociti destinati ad essere ovulati e fecondati dopo un lungo processo di maturazione), dagli effetti deleteri di un noto chemioterapico, il cisplatino, utilizzato nelle terapie di diversi tipi di tumori, compresi quelli che più frequentemente colpiscono le donne, come il tumore della mammella. Di fatto, i ricercatori hanno trovato che mentre il trattamento con cisplatino distruggeva i follicoli primordiali e rendeva sterili topoline in età prepubere, quando il chemioterapico veniva somministrato insieme all’LH, la maggior parte dei follicoli primordiali non degenerava e le topoline raggiunta l’età adulta risultavano fertili. Il gruppo ha anche dimostrato che la causa della degenerazione dei follicoli è con ogni probabilità attribuibile ai danni che il cisplatino apporta al DNA dell’ovocita contenuto nei follicoli; l’LH stimolerebbe i meccanismi di riparo del DNA e allo stesso tempo bloccherebbe le vie di morte per apoptosi che il cisplatino attiva negli ovociti. Attraverso quali meccanismi l’LH svolga questa importante nuova funzione e se essa avvenga anche in ovaie umane, è quello che i ricercatori stanno attualmente investigando. Queste scoperte potrebbero portare allo sviluppo di una strategia di protezione della funzionalità ovarica più fisiologica per le giovani pazienti malate di cancro.

Prende il via la fase preparatoria dell’infrastruttura di ricerca europea per la scienza applicata al patrimonio culturale: E-RIHS PP - European Research Infrastructure for Heritage Science Preparatory Phase. Firenze candidata a ospitare la sede centrale europea. Il progetto è finanziato dall’Ue e guidato dal Cnr, con il patrocinio del Comune di Firenze e della Regione Toscana e con il supporto della Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze

Si è tenuto oggi a Firenze, presso la Sala Capitolare della Caserma Redi (ex Convento del Maglio), il workshop internazionale ‘Towards a European Research Infrastructure for Heritage Science’, evento di avvio della fase preparatoria ‘E-RIHS PP - European Research Infrastructure for Heritage Science Preparatory Phase’, l’infrastruttura di ricerca europea per la scienza del patrimonio, unico dei sei nuovi progetti entrati nella Roadmap ESFRI (European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructure) nel 2016 a guida italiana. Per questo avvio la Commissione Europea ha approvato un finanziamento di 4 milioni di euro sul programma di ricerca e sviluppo Horizon 2020. Il progetto è finanziato dall’Ue e sostenuto da Miur, Mibact, Mise, patrocinato da Comune di Firenze e Regione Toscana, con il supporto della Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze che si è impegnata a mettere a disposizione l’immobile (cioè la Caserma Redi) nel caso Firenze diventi la sede permanente.

Con l'aumento della produzione zootecnica, per soddisfare le esigenze di una popolazione mondiale in crescita, è cresciuta a dismisura anche la somministrazione di antibiotici a bovini, suini e polli negli allevamenti di tipo intensivo. Si tratta di una pratica ancora vietata in Europa, ma praticata senza divieti in Cina e Stati Uniti. L’impiego è normalmente previsto per contenere infezioni e altre malattie fra capi che vivono fra di loro a stretto contatto, ma la FDA denuncia anche un uso superfluo per accelerare la crescita della muscolatura, in particolare nei bovini. Una stima parla addirittura dell'80 % di produzione di antibiotici negli Stati Uniti destinata all'allevamento.  Questa tendenza sta facendo in modo che aumenti la resistenza dei batteri agli antibiotici all'interno del suolo, comportando rischi sulla reale efficacia di questi farmaci. Il loro impiego massiccio infatti svolge un 'azione sul suolo, ed in particolare sui microrganismi, che non va sottovalutata.

PaulineScanlanCN2_3851c

What drives bacterial strain diversity in the gut? Although there are a number of possible explanations, a recent opinion piece published in TRENDs in Microbiology by Dr Pauline Scanlan, a Royal Society – Science Foundation Ireland Research Fellow at the APC Microbiome Institute, University College Cork, addresses one potentially important and overlooked aspect of this unresolved question. The human gut is host to an incredible diversity of microbes collectively known as the gut microbiome. Our gut microbiomes interact with us, their human hosts, to perform a myriad of crucial functions ranging from digestion of food to protection against pathogens. Whilst superficially it may seem that the microbes inhabiting the human gut are stable and broadly similar between individuals, recent advances in sequencing technology that allow for high-level resolution investigations have shown that our gut microbiomes are dynamic, capable of rapid evolution and unique to each individual in terms of bacterial species and strain diversity. This unique inter-individual variation is of crucial importance as we know that differences in bacterial strain diversity within species can have a range of positive or negative consequences for the human host – for example some strains of a given bacteria are harmless whilst another strain of the same bacterial species could kill you.  A classic example of this is different strains of the gut bacterium Escherichia coli - E. coli Nissle 1917 is used as a probiotic and E. coli O157:H7 has been responsible for a number of deadly food-borne pathogen outbreaks. Therefore a better understanding of what drives bacterial strain diversity is not just fundamental to our understanding of the ecology and evolution of microbes but is also highly relevant for improvements in human health and disease prevention.