NUTRITION, MALNUTRITION AND DIETARY INTERVENTIONS IN INFLAMMATORY BOWEL DISEASE

Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), which includes both Crohn's disease (CD) and Ulcerative Colitis (UC), is a chronic idiopathic inflammatory disorder affecting the gastrointestinal tract. Diet, as a source of luminal antigens, is thought to be an important factor in the pathogenesis of IBD. often the nutritional status of patients is significantly compromised, particularly in CD. several factors, including drug-nutrient interactions, disease location, symptoms, and dietary restriction can lead to protein energy malnutrition and specific nutritional deficiencies. solid evidence regarding the accountability of certain dietary components in the etiology of IBD are lacking. With regard to malnutrition, its consequence are growth failure, weight loss, bone disease, and/or micronutrient deficiencies, although micronutrient deficiency in IBD in most cases does not tend to have any evident clinical manifestation, except with regardo of iron, folic acid, and vitamin B. Nutritional supplemantation is essential for patients with evidence of malnutrition to increase calorie, and protein intake. Nutritional supplementation can also have efficacy in the induction and maintenance of remission in adults with CD, however it does not replace other treatments. Aim of this review is to discuss the role of nutrition and nutrients' deficiencies in the clinical setting of IBD, and to analyze efficacy and safety of the dietary interventions in patients with IBD

Diurnal and Circadian Rhythms in the Tomato Transcriptome and Their Modulation by Cryptochrome Photoreceptors

BACKGROUND: Circadian clocks are internal molecular time-keeping mechanisms that provide living organisms with the ability to adjust their growth and physiology and to anticipate diurnal environmental changes. Circadian clocks, without exception, respond to light and, in plants, light is the most potent and best characterized entraining stimulus. The capacity of plants to respond to light is achieved through a number of photo-perceptive proteins including cryptochromes and phytochromes. There is considerable experimental evidence demonstrating the roles of photoreceptors in providing light input to the clock. METHODOLOGY: In order to identify genes regulated by diurnal and circadian rhythms, and to establish possible functional relations between photoreceptors and the circadian clock in tomato, we monitored the temporal transcription pattern in plants entrained to long-day conditions, either by large scale comparative profiling, or using a focused approach over a number of photosensory and clock-related genes by QRT-PCR. In parallel, focused transcription analyses were performed in cry1a- and in CRY2-OX tomato genotypes. CONCLUSIONS: We report a large series of transcript oscillations that shed light on the complex network of interactions among tomato photoreceptors and clock-related genes. Alteration of cryptochrome gene expression induced major changes in the rhythmic oscillations of several other gene transcripts. In particular, over-expression of CRY2 had an impact not only on day/night fluctuations but also on rhythmicity under constant light conditions. Evidence was found for widespread diurnal oscillations of transcripts encoding specific enzyme classes (e.g. carotenoid biosynthesis enzymes) as well as for post-transcriptional diurnal and circadian regulation of the CRY2 transcript

Conserved Daily Transcriptional Programs in Carica papaya

Most organisms have internal circadian clocks that mediate responses to daily environmental changes in order to synchronize biological functions to the correct times of the day. Previous studies have focused on plants found in temperate and sub-tropical climates, and little is known about the circadian transcriptional networks of plants that typically grow under conditions with relatively constant day lengths and temperatures over the year. In this study we conducted a genomic and computational analysis of the circadian biology of Carica papaya, a tropical tree. We found that predicted papaya circadian clock genes cycle with the same phase as Arabidopsis genes. The patterns of time-of-day overrepresentation of circadian-associated promoter elements were nearly identical across papaya, Arabidopsis, rice, and poplar. Evolution of promoter structure predicts the observed morning- and evening-specific expression profiles of the papaya PRR5 paralogs. The strong conservation of previously identified circadian transcriptional networks in papaya, despite its tropical habitat and distinct life-style, suggest that circadian timing has played a major role in the evolution of plant genomes, consistent with the selective pressure of anticipating daily environmental changes. Further studies could exploit this conservation to elucidate general design principles that will facilitate engineering plant growth pathways for specific environments

Dinamiche commerciali e di approvvigionamento ceramico nel territorio di Contessa Entellina in età imperiale e tardoantica: riflessioni preliminari su quattro siti-campione

none5mixedFACELLA A; PERNA M; PUPPO P; VAGGIOLI M A; ZIRONE DFacella, A; Perna, M; Puppo, P; Vaggioli, M A; Zirone,

Dinamiche commerciali nel territorio di Contessa Entellina in età imperiale e tardoantica: le importazioni di ceramica Africana

none5mixedFACELLA A; PERNA M; PUPPO P; VAGGIOLI MA; ZIRONE DFacella, A; Perna, M; Puppo, P; Vaggioli, Ma; Zirone,