Nutrigerontology: a key for achieving successful ageing and longevity

During the last two centuries the average lifespan has increased at a rate of approximately 3 months/year in both sexes, hence oldest old people are becoming the population with the fastest growth in Western World. Although the average life expectancy is increasing dramatically, the healthy lifespan is not going at the same pace. This underscores the importance of studies on the prevention of age-related diseases, in order to satisfactorily decrease the medical, economic and social problems associated to advancing age, related to an increased number of individuals not autonomous and affected by invalidating pathologies. In particular, data from experimental studies in model organisms have consistently shown that nutrient signalling pathways are involved in longevity, affecting the prevalence of age-related loss of function, including age-related diseases. Accordingly, nutrigerontology is defined as the scientific discipline that studies the impact of nutrients, foods, macronutrient ratios, and diets on lifespan, ageing process, and age-related diseases. To discuss the potential relevance of this new science in the attainment of successful ageing and longevity, three original studies performed in Sicily with local foods and two reviews have been assembled in this series. Data clearly demonstrate the positive effects of nutraceuticals, functional foods and Mediterranean Diet on several biological parameters. In fact, they could represent a prevention for many age-related diseases, and, although not a solution for this social plague, at least a remedy to alleviate it. Thus, the possibility to create a dietary pattern, based on the combined strategy of the use of both nutraceuticals and functional foods should permit to create a new therapeutic strategy, based not only on a specific bioactive molecule or on a specific food but on a integrated approach that, starting from the local dietary habits, can be led to a “nutrafunctional diet” applicable worldwide.     

Aggressive Behavior in Olive Fruit Fly Females: Oviposition Site Guarding against Parasitic Wasps

Among Tephritidae flies, the females display agonistic behavior to maintain single oviposition sites and reduce larval competition for food. In the olive fruit fly, Bactrocera oleae, female-female aggressive interactions are characterized by reciprocal wing waving, chasing, head butting and boxing with forelegs. Little is known on tephritid aggressive behaviors directed towards natural enemies, with special reference to parasitoids attacking their young instars. In this study, we quantified the aggressive behavior of B. oleae females guarding their oviposition site against the braconid parasitoid Psyttalia concolor. The fly aggressive behavior displayed against the parasitoids was compared that directed towards paper dummies mimicking P. concolor adults. When a P. concolor female came close (<20 mm) to a B. oleae female guarding the oviposition site, the 91.67% of the flies displayed wing-waving, the 63.34% chased the parasitoid, the 45% showed head-butting, while boxing was observed only in the 26.67% of the aggressions. When paper dummies were tested, only the 66.67% of the flies displayed wing-waving, the 8.33% performed chasing, followed by head butting (5.00%) and boxing (3.33%). B. oleae displayed longer aggression bouts towards live wasps over dummies. Overall, this is the first evidence pointing out that tephritid aggressive acts, besides their role in intraspecific interactions, were also highly effective to displace parasitic wasps from the fly oviposition site. Further research on potential consequences on fitness traits arising from the above-discussed behaviors, as well as on parasitoid learning-mediated responses to tephritid aggressions, is urgently required.     

Cetacean morbillivirus: A Land-to-Sea Journey and Back?

<正>Cetacean morbillivirus(CeMV), the most relevant pathogen impacting the health and conservation of several already threatened cetacean populations worldwide(Van Bressem et al. 2014), has shown in recent years an apparently increased tendency to cross ‘‘interspecies barriers' '(Jo et al. 2018 a), thereby giving rise to disease and mortality outbreaks in free-ranging dolphins and whales     

Advances,challenges and tools in characterizing bacterial serine,threonine and tyrosine kinases and phosphorylation target sites.

Introduction: The cellular response to infection by bacterial pathogens involves a complex and highly regulated series of pathways that carry messages to various parts of the cell. These messages are transferred using post-translational modifications including phosphorylation by kinases. Understanding the host’s signaling pathways is valuable in identifying potential treatment targets, but the bacterial signaling pathways and host-pathogen crosstalk are equally important to the development of therapeutics.

Areas covered: This review summarizes some of the recent findings related to the bacterial phosphoproteome and especially serine/threonine/tyrosine sites, including methods and considerations for identifying novel phosphosites. We also consider the bioinformatics tools that have been developed to sift through the large volume of data in these studies and connect them to biologically relevant knowledge about pathways and function. Literature databases used include PubMed and Google Scholar from April 2018 to December 2018.

Expert opinion: While the field has developed significantly in the past decade of research, high-quality experimental sequence data remains the limiting factor to future research into bacterial phosphoproteomics. As more proteomes are explored, it will be easier to tailor tools and techniques to prokaryotes. It will be necessary to consider the phosphoproteome in the broader biological context, through interdisciplinary collaborations.