Deoxynivalenol content in italian organic durum wheat: Results of a six-year survey

Deoxynivalenol (DON) contamination was investigated of Italian durum wheat from organic agriculture. A number of 661 samples from 13 genotypes were collected within the national organic durum wheat network variety trials during the six-year period between 2007–2012 in five different growing areas across Italy (Northern Italy, Marches, Central Apennines, West-Central Italy, Apulia). Mean temperatures and total rainfalls in April, May and June were collected nearby the study sites. Average DON contamination value along the whole study period was 67 μg/kg, and DON was detected only in 36% of the samples. Noteworthy, 95% of the analyzed grain revealed a DON contamination lower than 334 μg/kg. Maximum allowed DON level for unprocessed durum wheat set by European Union (1750 μg/kg) was exceeded only in four samples (0.6%). The highest mean DON values were detected in Northern Italy (175 μg/kg) and Marches (131 μg/kg). The same was for the percentage of positive samples (80% and 58%, respectively). Lower mean values and percentages of contaminated samples were found in West-Central Italy (22 μg/kg and 29%, respectively), Apennines (3 μg/kg and 8%, respectively) and Apulia (2 μg/kg and 7%, respectively). Statistical analysis (Generalized Linear Model, GLZ) was carried out to highlight the effect of factors like cultivation year, growing area and genotype. It revealed a huge effect of year, growing areas and their interaction, while the effect of genotype resulted significantly but quite less than the other main factors. The effect of the year could be explained by climatic data, which suggested an influence of rainfall and temperature at heading on both DON concentration values and percentage of contaminated samples. Results of this study put in evidence a low DON contamination in Italian organic durum wheat

Preliminary survey on the co-occurrence of DON and T2+HT2 toxins in durum wheat in Italy

This study was carried out to determine the co-occurrence of deoxynivalenol (DON) and the sum of T2 and HT2 toxins in durum wheat samples belonging to eight cultivars grown in a national network experimental trials over a three-year period (2011–2013). The effect of several factors (cultivar, year and cultivation area) affecting the occurrence of the two types of mycotoxins and their relationship with several agronomic and grain quality parameters were assayed by statistical analysis (GLZ). The results highlighted the different trend of incidence and contamination rate of the two types of mycotoxins in relation to the cropping year and to the growing examined areas. Year and its interaction with the cultivation area was the most important factor affecting the DON contamination, whereas genotype and its interaction with the year mainly influenced T2+HT2 toxins contamination rate. DON and T2+HT2 contamination levels were not significantly correlated with each other. The evidence that the two types of mycotoxins were differently related with several agronomic and grain quality parameters could be connected to the effects of the respective fungal disease on wheat plant

Evidences from long-term monitoring of Italian forests. Tree radial growth as response index to disturbances and its relations with the stand structure

The paper deals with the work undertaken since 1995 within the national level II network framed into the ICP-Forests ICP-IM programme. A synthesis of results from tree growth monitoring and relationships with stand structure and related parameters, are reported. Current changes in the growth medium, i.e. physics and chemistry of atmosphere and soil, (increase of average air temperature, rainfall shortage and drought, CO2 enrichment, ozone level, nitrogen fertilization, sulphate deposition) drive today the soil-tree-atmosphere relationships. The overall result of these concurrent and counteracting factors is recorded along each growing seasons by radial stem growth, it providing a sensitive response. A few occurrences of disturbances to growth at regional and at case-study level, likely due to climate deviations, are discussed. Seasonal fluctuations and anomalous or extreme events are, as a matter of fact, the major evidences over the last decade. The heat wave 2003 is the main case occurred over a large part of Europe. Growth rate 2000-04 compared with 1997-2000, showed reductions up to 50% on plots located within the Southern continental border of the heat wave. These occurred more specifically at low elevations and for pre-determined early growth species (beech and oaks). Over the following time-window 2005-09, a significant growth decrease was vice versa detected within the coniferous spruce forests located at medium-high elevation in the Alps, where repeated seasonal anomalies both in air temperature and rainfall were recorded over the same time-span. The heavy effect of climate disturbance at a local scale is finally examined where two oak species with different auto-ecology grow together at the same site. Reasons why and awaited goals from protocols’ updating and the more intensive surveys applied to core-areas in 2009-10 under LIFE+FutMon, are reported. Perspectives at short to medium term of monitoring programme at national and European level are finally debated

TCR repertoire diversity in Multiple Sclerosis: High-dimensional bioinformatics analysis of sequences from brain, cerebrospinal fluid and peripheral blood

BACKGROUND: T cells play a key role in the pathogenesis of multiple sclerosis (MS), a chronic, inflammatory, demyelinating disease of the central nervous system (CNS). Although several studies recently investigated the T-cell receptor (TCR) repertoire in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of MS patients by high-throughput sequencing (HTS), a deep analysis on repertoire similarities and differences among compartments is still missing. METHODS: We performed comprehensive bioinformatics on high-dimensional TCR Vβ sequencing data from published and unpublished MS and healthy donors (HD) studies. We evaluated repertoire polarization, clone distribution, shared CDR3 amino acid sequences (CDR3s-a.a.) across repertoires, clone overlap with public databases, and TCR similarity architecture. FINDINGS: CSF repertoires showed a significantly higher public clones percentage and sequence similarity compared to peripheral blood (PB). On the other hand, we failed to reject the null hypothesis that the repertoire polarization is the same between CSF and PB. One Primary-Progressive MS (PPMS) CSF repertoire differed from the others in terms of TCR similarity architecture. Cluster analysis splits MS from HD. INTERPRETATION: In MS patients, the presence of a physiological barrier, the blood-brain barrier, does not impact clone prevalence and distribution, but impacts public clones, indicating CSF as a more private site. We reported a high Vβ sequence similarity in the CSF-TCR architecture in one PPMS. If confirmed it may be an interesting insight into MS progressive inflammatory mechanisms. The clustering of MS repertoires from HD suggests that disease shapes the TCR Vβ clonal profile. FUNDING: This study was partly financially supported by the Italian Multiple Sclerosis Foundation (FISM), that contributed to Ballerini-DB data collection (grant #2015 R02)