Alessandro Abruzzese

University of Milan | UNIMI · Department of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences - Production, Landscape, Agroenergy

Spillage from oil refineries, pipelines, and service stations consistently leads to soil, food and groundwater contamination. Bacterial-assisted phytoremediation is a non-invasive and sustainable solution to eliminate or decrease the concentration of xenobiotic contaminants in the environment. In the present study, a protected area interested by a...

Salinity is increasingly considered as a major environmental issue, which threatens agricultural production by decreasing yield traits of crops. Seed priming is a useful and cost-effective technique to alleviate the negative effects of salinity and to enable a fast and uniform germination. In this context, we quantified the effects of priming with...

Background: Phosphorus is an essential component of fertilizers and feed and in recent decades has become one of the main sustainability issues as a non-renewable resource. In plant seeds, the main reserve of phosphorus is phytic acid, a strong anti-nutritional factor for monogastrics and a pollutant of cultivated lands. The reduction of phytic ac...

Climate changes impose adoption of water-saving techniques to improve the sustainability of irrigated rice systems. This study was aimed, by a two-years side-by-side comparison, at verifying the hypothesis whether "Alternate Wetting and Drying" (AWD) affects the concentrations of health-related compounds and minerals in brown grains of three japoni...

Six barley cultivars widely differing for cadmium (Cd) tolerance, partitioning, and translocation were analyzed in relation to their thiol metabolism. Results indicated that Cd tolerance was not clearly related to the total amount of Cd absorbed by plants, resulting instead closely dependent on the capacity of the cultivars to trap the metal into t...

Six barley cultivars widely differing for cadmium (Cd) tolerance, partitioning, and translocation were analyzed in relation to their thiol metabolism. Results indicated that Cd tolerance was not clearly related to the total amount of Cd absorbed by plants, resulting instead closely dependent on the capacity of the cultivars to trap the metal into t...

A strategy is described that enables the in situ detection of natural transformation in Acinetobacter baylyi BD413 by the expression of a green fluorescent protein. Microscale detection of bacterial transformants growing on plant tissues was shown by fluorescence microscopy and indicated that cultivation-based selection of transformants on antibiot...

The effect of root-released compounds of transplastomic tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) on the soil bacterial community structure, and their potential to support horizontal gene transfer (HGT) to bacteria have been studied. Soil microcosms were exposed to root-released compounds collected from transplastomic and non-transgenic tobacco cultivars. Cluste...

The effect of increasing osmotic values of the medium (mannitol) on the growth and the response mechanisms of seeds of radish (Raphanus sativus L., cv. Ton do Rosso Quarantino) during the early phase of germination was investigated in the presence or absence of fusicoccin (FC). Decreasing the water potential in the medium inhibited the growth and t...

The effect of transgenic Bt 176 maize on the rhizosphere bacterial community has been studied with a polyphasic approach by comparing the rhizosphere of Bt maize cultivated in greenhouse with that of its non transgenic counterpart grown in the same conditions. In the two plants the bacterial counts of the copiotrophic, oligotrophic and sporeforming...

Background. Soil pollution with heavy metals is one of the major problems in industrial areas. Chelate-assisted phytoextraction has been proposed as an alternative to the high costs of the ex situ methodology of decontamination based on soil removal and treatment. The soil of the present study has a low - medium level of lead contamination (360 mg/...

The effect of growth under saline condition (100 mol m-3 NaCl in the nutrient solution) on the influx and the efflux of glucose from roots of cotton plants was analysed utilising the non metabolisable glucose analogue [14C]-3-O-methylglucose ([14C]3-OMG). Apical segments (1 cm long) excised from cotton roots took up [14C]3-OMG. At each tested conce...

In the last 30 d of potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) tuber growth metabolic activity decreased. Levels of glucose-6-P and sucrose in whole tuber tissues declined and in tuber slices there was a decrease in the uptake from the medium and in the incorporation into macromolecules of [U-14C]sucrose. During storage at 23°C only the uptake of [U-14C]sucrose...

Kiwi (Actinidia deliciosa) calli were grown for two successive 45-day subcultures on agarised medium in order to evaluate the metabolic changes occurring during the growth of the callus. At different times (10, 35 and 45 days of each subculture), increase in fresh weight, oxygen uptake rate, levels of inorganic cations (K+, Ca2+, Mg2+ and Na+) and...

Apple (Malus domestica Borkh.) trees are often affected by a severe June fruit drop, which is often correlated with competition phenomena involving fruit nutrition. This research was initiated to determine if June drop in `Gloster'/M.9 apple could be correlated with a diminished nutrient availability in developing seeds and fruit. During the test p...

Calli of Actinidia deliciosa were cultured on medium with 30 mM sucrose and 0.2 M 3-O-methyl-D-glucose (3-OMG) and their metabolic adaptation to the hyperosmotic condition was studied. 3-OMG concentration in the tissue reached that of the medium. Experiments with labelled 3-O-methyl-D-U-14C]glucose (3-OM[U-14C]G) showed that it was partially metabo...

The effects of cold, moist treatment (stratification) on dormancy break and associated changes in gene expression were determined for seeds of Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii). At a germination temperature of 20°C between 93–95% of the seed population failed to germinate after 42 days. A high percentage of germination (up to 73%) at 20°C only oc...

The effects of an osmotic shock (300 mM mannitol, –0. 67 MPa) or/and increased external hydrostatic pressure on seedlings (42-h-germinated seeds) of radish (Raphanus sativus L. cv. Tondo Rosso Quarantino) were investigated. The osmotic shock did not inhibit H+ extrusion and net K- uptake, and did not affect the levels of malic acid, reducing sugars...