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This article reports the first occurrence of strawberry bacterial blight caused by Pantoea ananatis in Italy. In September 2021, a significant number of strawberry plants in a tunnel cultivation in Falcade, Veneto, showed symptoms of ooze production, leaf, flower, and pseudo-fruit rot. Bacterial isolates from the diseased plants were identified as Pantoea ananatis through genetic sequencing and pathogenicity tests confirmed their ability to cause the observed symptoms. This finding is important for the management of this plant pathogenic bacterium in Italy. [Extracted from the article]

The grapevine erineum mite strain (GEM) of Colomerus vitis (Pagenstecher) has spread throughout the main viticultural areas worldwide and was recently demonstrated to be a vector of Grapevine pinot gris virus (GPGV) and Grapevine inner necrosis virus (GINV). Its females mainly overwinter under the outer bud scales as winter morphs (deutogynes). Goals of this study were to characterize the morphology of protogynes (spring-summer morphs) and deutogynes (winter morphs), to confirm their genetic similarity, and to establish the seasonal period of the deutogyne occurrence. Buds or leaves from a single vineyard (cv. Luisa), Bari area, Apulia, Italy, infested with GEM were sampled 6 × from December 2015 to January 2017. Sixty-six traits commonly used for taxonomic identification were analysed on females. The length of the tibial setae l' on leg I and the tarsal setae ft' on leg II, as well as the number of smooth dorsal semiannuli differed significantly between protogynes and deutogynes, and were easier to detect than other significantly distinctive traits. ITS1 was investigated in individuals collected from buds and erinea, and the sequences confirmed that these two morphs have identical ITS1 fragments. The 1-year study demonstrated the simultaneous presence of protogynes and deutogynes in July and September 2016, whereas only protogynes were found in April and May 2016, and only deutogynes in December 2015 and January 2017.

In the Milan School population the screening for microcythemy is performed from 1963. It was conducted an investigation among the subjects who were recognized microcythemics eight years ago and who now are eighteen years old. Almost all of them are conscious about their situation and about half of them has a scrupulous notion about a cross-breeding with a high risk. Are also offered the results of the research on the personal behaviour in front of the direct prevention of the mediterranean anemia by prenatal diagnosis.

The AIMilano apoprotein variant is associated with a marked reduction of high density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol levels and with increased triglyceridemia. In spite of the low HDL-cholesterol (HDL-Ch), carriers do not generally show clinical signs of atherosclerosis. The biochemical disorder is linked to a molecular change in apoprotein AI, that is, an arg----cys substitution in the 173 position, thus allowing the formation of AIMilano-AIMilano dimers and AIMilano-AII complexes. The origin of the variant gene has been located in Limone sul Garda, a small community in Northern Italy (about 1,000 individuals). This community has a genetic, biochemical, and clinical individuality, consequent to its isolation up to a few years ago; the citizens show highly uniform alimentary habits and elevated consanguinity. The complete population of the small village was sampled, and, by the use of an analytical isoelectric focusing technique for the detection of the mutant, a total of 33 living carriers, ranging in age from 2 to 81 yrs, were identified. Analysis of the genealogic tree of the complete family groups showed that the apoprotein (apo) AIMilano is transmitted as an autosomal dominant trait, all carriers coming from a single mating couple, living in the eighteenth century. The carriers are heterozygous for the apoprotein variant.

The impact of genetic factors on the levels of plasma lipids and lipoproteins was evaluated in the total population of a small village. Limone sul Garda, separated up to recent years from neighboring communities, shows a high degree of consanguineity: major blood group phenotypes differ from nearby provinces for at least three gene frequencies. The absence of a difference in plasma lipid correlations between parent-pediatric offspring and parent-adult offspring, is consistent with the uniformity of living habits in the Limone community. Correlation coefficients proved highly significant only for plasma total cholesterol (range of r: 0.223 to 0.359). Differently from other reports, correlations for low density and high density cholesterolemias (LDL and HDL-C) were mostly nonsignificant in the parent-offspring comparisons. Similarly, only intersibling correlations for triglycerides (TG) were statistically significant. As indicated in other genetic studies on plasma lipoprotein levels (also in the Limone sul Garda study), TG and HDL-C were negatively correlated, whereas the correlation was positive between TG and LDL-C levels. The examined population does not, therefore, show a metabolic behavior at variance from other investigated groups. This study, offering a unique opportunity for enucleating genetic from environmental factors, suggests that most familial clusterings of lipoprotein concentrations are environmentally determined, whereas total cholesterolemia is controlled by autosomal mechanisms, without significant variations between sexes.

Many cases of cardiovascular diseases have been examined in reference to the distribution of ABO blood-groups, in order to calculate the relative risk of disease and the hemogroupal distributive significance in our samples as related to those of other authors, using combined calculation. The analysis concerned the following cases: 746 with arterial hypertension, 3258 with congenital heart disease, 4503 with articular rheumatism, 1047 with acquired valvulopathia, and respective controls. It was found that blood-group phenotypes represent an important biophysiopathological action in regard to articular rheumatism and its cardiac consequences, in myocardial infarction and in hypertension, males only. On the contrary, no action in regard to congenital heart disease was found, with the exception of some single anomalies which have yet to be confirmed. This hemogroupal action greatly exceeds the one limited to the immunitary analogy and is a noticeable part of family heredity. It shows itself in: -- a significant negative association with group O and positive association with group A in the myocardial infarction; -- a significant negative association with group O and positive for the others in the valvulopathic (rheumatic) diseases; -- a positive association with A phenotype and negative with B in arterial hypertension, males only; -- no association with ABO blood-groups and congenital heart disease.

In our Department a yearly screening is carried out on the school population of Milan, in order to detect beta-thalassaemic trait carriers and G-6-P-D deficient males. This report deals with the results obtained on a group of 21,118 males. They all showed very low enzyme activity and often just detectable; the fall of GSH after incubation with acetylphenhylhidrazine appeared significantly greater than normal. Only 3 cases of hemolytic crises by fava beans ingestion and 7 cases of neonatal jaundice resulted from anamnestic data.

Erythrocyte glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) was assayed in subjects of Mediterranean origin and the distribution of the data obtained seems to confirm the existence of two alleles coding for low and high enzyme activity. In order to define the limits of expected genotypes less arbitrarily we studied families where parents' genotypes could allow us to define that of the children. Gene frequencies were calculated from genotype frequencies of an unrelated population and from crossings distribution by the Hardy-Weinberg equation. We observed a good agreement between gene frequencies obtained by these two different methods.