Contribution to the floristic knowledge of the head of the Po Valley (Piedmont, north Italy)

In 2014, the annual field trip of the working group for Floristics, Systematics, and Evolution of the Italian Botanical Society was held in Piemonte (northern Italy), at the head of the Po Valley. This valley, at whose extremity is located the Monviso (3,841 m a.s.l.), belongs to the Cottian Alps about which very little is known from a floristic point of view. An inventory of the taxa of vascular plants collected during the field trip is reported here. The research led to the identification of 3,546 exsiccata, kept in nine public and nine private collections. A total of 669 taxa belonging to 79 plant families were recorded. Six taxa resulted endemic to Italy and three exclusive to Piemonte, while only nine alien species were detected; six taxa are new and five confirmed for the regional flora

Catalytic conversion of 2-chloropropane in oxidizing conditions: A FT-IR and flow reactor study

The conversion of 2-chloropropane (2CP) in the presence of oxygen has been investigated over a number of oxide catalysts. Mn oxide and Mn containing oxides are deactivated as combustion catalysts by chlorine, but are active in converting 2CP into propene and HCl. VWTi SCR catalysts are also very active in converting 2CP into propene, and, if vanadium content is relatively high, they also catalyse the burning of the resulting propene into CO and CO2. Acid catalysts such as alumina, silica-alumina and ZSM5 zeolite also catalyse the dehydrochlorination of CP to propene. However, HZSM5 is rapidly deactivated by coking. On silica alumina, dehydrochlorination occurs selectively at low temperature. FT-IR data and preliminary kinetic studies allowed to propose a reaction mechanism where an irreversible and fast conversion of 2CP into 2-propoxides is a key reaction step. \ua9 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved

Fragmentation of human erythrocyte actin following exposure to hypoxia

In a comparative study on erythrocytes (RBCs) drawn from mountaineers before and after a high-altitude stay, we observed that upon returning to sea level, their RBCs displayed a senescent-like phenotype as indicated by their density and the partial loss of membrane proteins which are shed by ageing RBCs. The aim of this study was to investigate possible changes in the membrane skeleton of these RBCs and to compare them with pathological RBCs. We analysed the proteins of RBC ghosts obtained from our subjects before and after returning to sea level by two-dimensional electrophoresis and mass spectrometry. We observed lower expression and fragmentation of beta-actin after exposure to hypoxia. This suggested an alteration in membrane skeleton structure, which was confirmed by beta-actin release in cell lysates during ghost preparation. We observed a similar actin fragmentation and release in RBC lysates from beta-thalassaemic patients. In conclusion, these results indicate that after exposure to hypoxia, RBCs display a modification of their actin and cytoskeleton instability