Search results for "Himera"
showing 10 items of 79 documents
Morphological and genomic characterisation of the Schistosoma hybrid infecting humans in Europe reveals admixture between Schistosoma haematobium and…
2021
Schistosomes cause schistosomiasis, the world’s second most important parasitic disease after malaria in terms of public health and social-economic impacts. A peculiar feature of these dioecious parasites is their ability to produce viable and fertile hybrid offspring. Originally only present in the tropics, schistosomiasis is now also endemic in southern Europe. Based on the analysis of two genetic markers the European schistosomes had previously been identified as hybrids between the livestock- and the human-infective species Schistosoma bovis and Schistosoma haematobium, respectively. Here, using PacBio long-read sequencing technology we performed genome assembly improvement and annotati…
A non-redundant role for OX40 in the competitive fitness of Treg in response to IL-2.
2010
OX40 stimulation is known to enhance activation of effector T cells and to inhibit induction and suppressive function of Treg. Here we uncovered a novel role of OX40 in sustaining Treg competitive fitness in vivo, during repopulation of lymphopenic hosts and reconstitution of BM chimeras. Defective expansion of OX40-null Treg diminished their ability to suppress inflammation in a model of lymphopenia-driven colitis. OX40-mediated promotion of Treg fitness spanned beyond lymphopenic environments, as endogenous Treg in OX40-null mice showed decreased accumulation during thymic development, enhanced susceptibility to antibody-mediated depletion and defective turnover following thymectomy. In v…
Tracing the first steps of American sturgeon pioneers in Europe
2008
Abstract Background A Baltic population of Atlantic sturgeon was founded ~1,200 years ago by migrants from North America, but after centuries of persistence, the population was extirpated in the 1960s, mainly as a result of over-harvest and habitat alterations. As there are four genetically distinct groups of Atlantic sturgeon inhabiting North American rivers today, we investigated the genetic provenance of the historic Baltic population by ancient DNA analyses using mitochondrial and nuclear markers. Results The phylogeographic signal obtained from multilocus microsatellite DNA genotypes and mitochondrial DNA control region haplotypes, when compared to existing baseline datasets from extan…
Virally Infected Mouse Liver Endothelial Cells Trigger CD8+ T-Cell Immunity
2009
Background & Aims Dendritic cell activation through ligation of pattern recognition receptors leading to full functional maturation causes induction of CD8 + T-cell immunity through increased delivery of costimulatory signals instead of tolerance. Here we investigate whether organ-resident antigen-presenting cells, such as liver sinusoidal endothelial cells (LSECs), also switch from tolerogenic to immunogenic CD8 + T-cell activation upon such stimulation. Methods Murine LSECs were isolated by immunomagnetic separation and analyzed for functional maturation upon triggering pattern recognition receptors or viral infection employing gene expression analysis and T cell coculture assays. In vivo…
Spazi e attività economiche nell’architettura domestica della Sicilia greca: osservazioni sull’evidenza archeologica, a partire dal caso di Himera
2018
While the functional analysis of houses is increasingly adopted, even in the archaeology of Sicily, as a tool useful for understanding the ancient way of life and the changing attitudes towards the ‘private’ space from the Early Archaic to Late Hellenistic times, it is mainly based on the architectural layout and on the physical characteristics of the buildings, or sometimes on a tiny selection of the findings. The possibility of analysing the activities concerned with production and commerce, and of appreciating the economic role of the domestic units, is consequently hardly limited. An useful case study is the town of Himera, due to the extension of the residential districts. So, a multif…
Chemical characterization of ancient potteries from Himera and Pestavecchia necropolis (Sicily, Italy) by Inductively Coupled Plasma–Optical Emission…
2011
Abstract Thirty-eight samples of pottery were analyzed for determining chemical composition in order to establish their provenance. The potteries tested in the present research come from Himera and Pestavecchia archaeological sites. After digestion in microwave oven, the samples have been analyzed for fourteen minor elements (Ba, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Ga, Li, Mn, Ni, Pb, Sr, Ti, Tl, and Zn) and six major elements (Al, Ca, Fe, K, Mg, and Na). Chemical analysis was carried out by Inductively Coupled Plasma–Optical Emission Spectroscopy (ICP–OES). The most abundant minor elements are Cr, Ba and Ni. Cr concentration ranged from 66 to 3635 mg kg − 1 , Ba concentration ranged from 388 to 2677 mg kg − 1…
Assembly of fluorescent chimeric virus-like particles of canine parvovirus in insect cells
2004
Canine parvovirus (CPV) is a small non-enveloped ssDNA virus composed of the viral proteins VP1, VP2, and VP3 with a T=1 icosahedral symmetry. VP2 is nested in VP1 and the two proteins are produced by differential splicing of a primary transcript of the right ORF of the viral genome. The VP2 protein can be further proteolytically cleaved to form VP3. Previous studies have shown that VP1 and VP3 are unnecessary for capsid formation and consequently, that VP2 alone is sufficient for assembly. We have hypothesized that insertion of the enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) at the N-terminus of VP2 could be carried out without altering assembly. To investigate the possibility to develop flu…
SPARC oppositely regulates inflammation and fibrosis in bleomycin-induced lung damage.
2011
Fibrosis results from inflammatory tissue damage and impaired regeneration. In the context of bleomycin-induced pulmonary fibrosis, we demonstrated that the matricellular protein termed secreted protein acidic and rich in cysteine (SPARC) distinctly regulates inflammation and collagen deposition, depending on its cellular origin. Reciprocal Sparc(-/-) and wild-type (WT) bone marrow chimeras revealed that SPARC expression in host fibroblasts is required and sufficient to induce collagen fibrosis in a proper inflammatory environment. Accordingly, Sparc(-/-) >WT chimeras showed exacerbated inflammation and fibrosis due to the inability of Sparc(-/-) macrophages to down-regulate tumor necrosis …
Cellular automaton for chimera states
2016
A minimalistic model for chimera states is presented. The model is a cellular automaton (CA) which depends on only one adjustable parameter, the range of the nonlocal coupling, and is built from elementary cellular automata and the majority (voting) rule. This suggests the universality of chimera-like behavior from a new point of view: Already simple CA rules based on the majority rule exhibit this behavior. After a short transient, we find chimera states for arbitrary initial conditions, the system spontaneously splitting into stable domains separated by static boundaries, ones synchronously oscillating and the others incoherent. When the coupling range is local, nontrivial coherent struct…
Recensione a Alessandro Polcri, Luigi Pulci e la Chimera. Studi sull’allegoria nel Morgante, Società Editrice Fiorentina, Firenze 2010, in «Annali di…
2011
Recensione