Biology subjects

Vitiello, G.

Publications and source records attributed to Vitiello, G..

4 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2023

Bioelectrical Synchronisation of Spruce Trees during aSolar Eclipse

Regular light-dark cycles greatly affect organisms, and events like eclipses induce distinctive physiological and behavioural shifts. While well-documented in animals, plant behaviour during eclipses remains largely unexplored. Here we monitored multiple spruce trees to assess their individual and collective bioelectrical responses to a solar eclipse. Trees anticipated the eclipse, synchronising their individual bioelectrical behaviour hours in advance. Older trees displayed greater anticipatory behaviour with early time-asymmetry and entropy increases, characteristic of memory dynamics in open dissipative systems such as trees. These results reveal a complex relationship between individual and collective tree behaviour, shaped by individual age and physiology as well as collective history and memory. This highlights the adaptive significance of synchrony and collective memory in plants, offering new insights on coordinated behaviours in nature. One Sentence SummaryTrees anticipate and respond collectively to a solar eclipse.

plant biology↗

bioRxiv2022

Bio-electric potentials in superior plants: electric collective behaviour

Electrical activity is used by plants in long term signalling and information transfer between the distant parts of the plant. Biopotential recordings from trees in a natural environment have been so far less discussed in scientific literature. Here we present our data about the open science experiment TRee-hUMAn iNterface (TRUMAN) located in Paneveggio forest (Valle di Fiemme, Trento, Italy), cultivated since one thousand years for the production of harmonic wood from Picea abies (red fir). We show that: i) biopotential features based on xylem can be correlated with the solar (and lunar) cycle ii) dead tree logs show an electrical activity that is correlated with that of neighbouring trees iii) statistical features of the spike-like peaks are evidenced, including amplitude, frequency, propagation speed, entropy iv) a quantum field theory is presented to highlight the collective behaviour of the forest, supported by preliminar correlation analyses between electrical signal Kolmogorov entropy and thermographies Shannon entropy.

biophysics↗

bioRxiv2020

In vitro effects on cellular shaping, contratility, cytoskeletal organization and mitochondrial activity in HL1 cells after different sounds stimulation. A qualitative pilot study and a theoretical physical model.

Convincing evidence has documented that mechanical vibrations profoundly affect the behaviour of different cell types and even the functions of different organs. Pressure waves such as those of sound could affect cytoskeletal molecules with coherent changes in their spatial organization and are conveyed to cellular nucleus via mechanotransduction. HL1 cells were grown and exposed to different sounds. Subsequently, cells were stained for phalloidin, beta-actin, alpha-tubulin, alpha-actinin-1 and MitoTracker(R) mitochondrial probe. The cells were analyzed with time-lapse and immunofluorescence/confocal microscopy. In this paper, we describe that different sound stimuli seem to influence the growth or death of HL1 cells, resulting in a different mitochondrial localization and expression of cytoskeletal proteins. Since the cellular behaviour seems to correlate with the meaning of the sound used, we speculate that it can be "understood" by the cells by virtue of the different sound waves geometric properties that we have photographed and filmed. A theoretical physical model is proposed to explain our preliminary results.

cell biology↗

bioRxiv2019

Variants in the degron of AFF3 cause a multi-system disorder with mesomelic dysplasia, horseshoe kidney and developmental and epileptic encephalopathy

The ALF transcription factor paralogs, AFF1, AFF2, AFF3 and AFF4, are components of the transcriptional super elongation complex that regulates expression of genes involved in neurogenesis and development. We describe a new autosomal dominant disorder associated with de novo missense variants in the degron of AFF3, a nine amino acid sequence important for its degradation. Consistent with a causative role of AFF3 variants, the mutated AFF3 proteins show reduced clearance. Ten affected individuals were identified, and present with a recognizable pattern of anomalies, which we named KINSSHIP syndrome (KI for horseshoe KIdney, NS for Nievergelt/Savarirayan type of mesomelic dysplasia, S for Seizures, H for Hypertrichosis, I for Intellectual disability and P for Pulmonary involvement), partially overlapping the AFF4 associated CHOPS syndrome. An eleventh individual with a microdeletion encompassing only the transactivation domain and degron motif of AFF3 exhibited overlapping clinical features. A zebrafish overexpression model that shows body axis anomalies provides further support for the pathological effect of increased amount of AFF3 protein.\n\nWhereas homozygous Aff3 knockout mice display skeletal anomalies, kidney defects, brain malformation and neurological anomalies, knock-in animals modeling the microdeletion and the missense variants identified in affected individuals presented with lower mesomelic limb deformities and early lethality, respectively.\n\nTranscriptome analyses as well as the partial phenotypic overlap of syndromes associated with AFF3 and AFF4 variants suggest that ALF transcription factors are not redundant in contrast to what was previously suggested

genetics↗