Biology subjects

Alfano, C.

Publications and source records attributed to Alfano, C..

4 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2026

NREM sleep microarchitecture is associated with internalizing symptoms and emotional functioning in early adolescence

Study Objectives: Sleep disturbances are common in youth with anxiety disorders, yet most prior work relies on subjective measures and does not capture underlying neural processes. We examined whether alterations in non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep oscillations are present in children with anxiety disorders and whether these features relate to internalizing symptoms and emotional functioning. Methods: Children aged 9-13 years with diagnosed anxiety disorders (ANX; n = 17) and typically developing non-psychiatric comparison participants (NC; n = 26) completed overnight polysomnography. Slow oscillations (SO) and slow and fast sleep spindles were characterized using validated automated detection algorithms. Participants also completed a pre-sleep emotional processing task, and parents provided standardized measures of youth mental health. Group differences and dimensional associations between NREM oscillations, internalizing symptoms, and behavioral indices of emotional processing were examined. Results: Sleep architecture did not differ between groups. Slow spindle duration was shorter in the ANX group. Across the full sample, shorter slow spindle duration was associated with greater internalizing symptoms, whereas higher SO density was positively associated with internalizing symptoms. Children in the ANX group exhibited greater facial emotional arousal and more frequent look-away behavior during the emotional processing task. Across participants, greater emotional arousal and look-away behavior were associated with shorter spindle duration during subsequent sleep. Conclusions: Specific features of NREM microarchitecture were associated with individual differences in internalizing symptoms and emotional functioning during early adolescence. These findings highlight the potential relevance of NREM oscillations for understanding developmental links between sleep and youth psychopathology.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2025

Molecular mechanisms of sexual dimorphism in cancer through improved miRNA regulation-level network-based approach: MIRROR2

A current open challenge in precision medicine is sex-specific medicine: the study of how sex-based biological differences influence peoples health. With recent advancements in high-throughput technologies, large-scale molecular data are being generated for individual cancer patients, however, extracting meaningful insights from these complex datasets remains a challenge. Network-based approaches, being inherently holistic, can lead to a better understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying a disease. For this reason, this study focuses on the development of a network-based method to investigate sexual dimorphism in cancer using transcriptomic data. Previous studies have already shown how miRNAs are involved in differentiating patients by sex in different types of cancer; however, they focused only on evaluating changes in the expression level, without conducting a more comprehensive analysis of miRNA expression or investigating miRNAs targets. The aim of this study is therefore to carry out a multi-layer study involving both miRNAs and their target genes expression data. In particular, we developed a generalizable algorithm (MIRROR2), which can be used on cancer patients to help identify key regulatory mechanisms and molecules that act as differentiators between males and females. Here we implemented and tested MIRROR2 on three different cancers (colon adenocarcinoma, hepatocellular carcinoma, and low-grade gliomas) and assessed its performance by comparing it to state-of-the-art approaches. This revealed MIRROR2s efficacy in identifying sex-specific key genes (and how to integrate them with clinical features), presenting it as a viable alternative to state-of-the-art methods which fail to capture these differences.

bioinformatics↗

bioRxiv2023

Microalgae as a novel biofactory for biocompatible and bioactive extracellular vesicles

Nanoalgosomes are extracellular vesicles (EVs) released by microalgal cells that can mediate intercellular and cross-kingdom communication. In the present study, starting from the optimized nanoalgosome manufacturing from cultures of marine microalgae, we evaluated their innate biological properties in preclinical models. Our investigation of nanoalgosome biocompatibility included toxicological analyses, starting from studies on the invertebrate model organism Caenorhabditis elegans, proceeding to hematological and immunological evaluations in mice and immune-compatibility ex vivo. Nanoalgosome biodistribution was evaluated in mice with accurate space-time resolution, and in C. elegans at cellular and subcellular levels. Further examination highlighted the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory bioactivities of nanoalgosomes. This holistic approach to nanoalgosome functional characterization showcases that nanoalgosomes are innate effectors and potential drug delivery system for novel cosmetic formulations and EV-based therapies.

cell biology↗

bioRxiv2019

Intrinsic neuronal excitability and spontaneous activity underlie cortical abnormalities upon Nr2f1/COUP-TFI deficiency

The formation of functional cortical maps in the cerebral cortex results from a timely regulated interaction between intrinsic genetic mechanisms and electrical activity. To understand how transcriptional regulation influences network activity and neuronal excitability within the neocortex, we used mice deficient for the area mapping gene Nr2f1 (also known as COUP-TFI), a key determinant of somatosensory area specification during development. We found that cortical loss of Nr2f1 impacts on spontaneous network activity and synchronization at perinatal stages. In addition, we observed alterations in the intrinsic excitability and morphological features of layer V pyramidal neurons. Accordingly, we identified distinct voltage-gated ion channels regulated by Nr2f1 that might directly influence intrinsic bioelectrical properties during critical time windows of somatosensory cortex specification. Together, our data suggest a tight link between Nr2f1 and neuronal excitability in the developmental sequence that ultimately sculpts the emergence of cortical network activity within the immature neocortex.

neuroscience↗