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The article offers information on the XIVth scientific meeting of the Italian Association of Developmental and Comparative Immunobiology (IADCI) to be held from February 14-16, 2013 in Palermo, Italy.

Immunohistochemical and in situ hybridization assays were performed to answer the question whether the endostyle, that is the initial gastro-intestinal trait of Ciona intestinalis pharynx, is involved in galectin (CiLgals-a and CiLgals-b) production during the pharynx inflammatory response to LPS inoculation. Specific anti-CiLgal-a and anti-CiLgals-b antibodies, and oligonucleotide probes, that mark inflammatory hemocytes inside the pharynx vessels and vessel epithelium as shown by a previous paper, were assayed on endostyle histological sections. For the first time, we show that galectins are produced by endostyle zones, and both CiLgals-a and -b genes are upregulated by LPS. CiLgals-a and CiLgals-b are constitutively expressed in the endostyle zone 2 and 3, respectively, both genes are upregulated by LPS in the zone 2, and CiLgals-b in the zone 3 and 4. The antibody-reacting material contained in intracellular and extracellular large vesicles suggest an unexpected vesicle-dependent transporting mechanism of galectins not provided with signal peptide. Differential expression and gene upregulation in not-treated and LPS-treated specimens, support the role of endostyle galectins both in filter feeding and defense responses., (Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Three macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF)-related sequences were identified from a Mytilus galloprovincialis EST library. The consensus sequence included a 5'-UTR of 32 nucleotides, the complete ORF of 345 nucleotides, and a 3'-UTR of 349 nucleotides. As for other MIFs, M. galloprovincialis ORF does not include any signal or C-terminus extensions. The translated sequence of 115 amino acids possesses a molecular mass of 12,681.4, a pI of 6.27 and a stability index of 21.48. Its 3D structure resembles human MIF except for one shorter α-helix. Although evolutionary separated from ticks and vertebrates, Mg-MIF appeared to be closely related to Pinctada fucata and Haliotis, but not to Chlamys farreri and Biomphalaria glabrata. Numerous mutation points were observed within the Mg-MIF ORF, defining 11 amino acid variants within the mussels from Palavas-France and 14 amino acid variants within the mussels from Palermo-Italy. The 2 major variants from Palavas were identical to 2 of the 4 major variants from Palermo. In all the 18 Mg-MIF variants, residues involved in tautomerase and in oxidoreductase activities were conserved. Generally, one mussel expressed 2 Mg-MIF amino acid sequences but with different frequencies of occurrence. Mg-MIF is constitutively expressed principally in hemocytes and in the mantle. In contrast to other animal models, Mg-MIF expression was always down regulated following challenge by bacteria and fungi, confirming previous data obtained with microarray. Down regulation started as soon as 1 h and Mg-MIF expression returned to background 9-48 h after the challenge. Exception was regarding the yeast, Candidaalbicans, down-regulation between 9 and 72 h, suggesting yeast and bacteria-filamentous fungi trigger different mechanisms of elimination., (Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

We have studied a group of 349 institutionalized propositi with mental retardation, and found 12 fra(X)-positive cases among 155 males (7.7%) and 8 fra(X)-positive cases among 194 females (4.1%). The males had characteristic manifestations of the Martin-Bell syndrome. Another 7 males, who were initially considered "borderline", having expression of fra(X) less than 4% and a non-characteristic phenotype, were eventually considered negative. Among 5,624 patients (2,764 males and 2,860 females) that were admitted to the Pediatric Department of the University of Catania during the period July 1986 - June 1987, 210 (120 males and 90 females) had mental retardation. Of these, 75 were analyzed for the presence of fra(X) (q27.3); 5 males (0.18% of all males) and 2 females (0.07% of all females) were fra(X)-positive. The males had the Martin Bell syndrome phenotype. The presence of fra(X) (q27) was confirmed in another 4 male propositi that were referred to our outpatient services with a clinical diagnosis of Martin-Bell syndrome.