Antonella LeoneItalian National Research Council | CNR
Antonella Leone
PhD Researcher
About
44
Publications
12,606
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1,113
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Introduction
Graduated in Biological Sciences (University of Salento, 1990), PhD in Agricultural Genetics (University of Tuscia, Viterbo, 1994). Researcher from 2001 at the CNR-ISPA (National Research Council, Institute of Sciences of Food Production) Lecce, Italy.
Research activity is focused on the study of biological activities of natural compounds extracted from marine invertebrates, microalgae, plants, including secondary products of agro-industry. Interest in the sustainability of production processes through the use of neglected resources: starting with the use of waste from agro-industry production and the use of innovative processes such as supercritical CO2 extraction, and ending with the use of new marine biomass such as jellyfish biomasses.
Additional affiliations
January 2009 - present
January 2001 - present
January 1992 - February 1995
Education
November 1986 - December 1990
Publications
Publications (44)
This study describes the set-up and optimization of a fermentation strategy applied to a composite raw material containing jellyfish biomass as the principal ingredient. New fermented food was developed by combining fresh jellyfish Rhizostoma pulmo and the sequential solid-state submerged liquid fermentation method used in Asian countries for proce...
Edible jellyfish are a traditional Southeast Asian food, usually prepared as a rehydrated product using a salt and alum mixture, whereas they are uncommon in Western Countries and considered as a novel food in Europe. Here, a recently developed, new approach for jellyfish processing and stabilization with calcium salt brining was upgraded by modify...
Marine invertebrates represent a vast, untapped source of bioactive compounds. Cnidarians are represented by nearly 10,000 species that contain a complex mixture of venoms, collagen, and other bioactive compounds, including enzymes, oligosaccharides, fatty acids, and lipophilic molecules. Due to their high abundance in coastal waters, several jelly...
Increasing frequency of native jellyfish proliferations and massive appearance of non-indigenous jellyfish species recently concur to impact Mediterranean coastal ecosystems and human activities at sea. Nonetheless, jellyfish biomass may represent an exploitable novel resource to coastal communities, with reference to its potential use in the pharm...
Jellyfish, marketed and consumed as food in The Far East, are traditionally processed using salt and alum mixtures. In recent years, the interest of Western consumers in jellyfish (JF) as a food source is increasing. In Europe [European Union (EU)], JF-derived food products are regulated by a novel food law, but methods for JF treatment and process...
A wide variety of polyphenols are reported to have considerable antioxidant and skin photoprotective effects, although the mechanisms of action are not fully known. Environmentally friendly and inexpensive sources of natural bioactive compounds, such as olive mill wastewater (OMWW), the by-product of olive-oil processing, can be considered an econo...
Over the last 50 years there has been an increased frequency and severity of negative impacts affecting marine fishery and aquaculture sectors, which claimed significant economic losses due to the interference of stinging gelatinous organisms with daily operational activities. Nevertheless, original scientific information on jellyfish-related incid...
The globalization of food markets and the recent upgrade of the European regulation on novel foods open up new possibilities for the introduction of edible jellyfish in the diet of Europeans. In spite of no tradition of eating jellyfish in Italy and, more generally, in Western countries, several Mediterranean jellyfish species have biological and n...
Fishery, market and consumption of edible jellyfish are currently limited in western countries by the lack of market demand for jellyfish products and the absence of processing technologies adequate to the western market safety standards. The development of technology-driven processing protocols may be key to comply with rigorous food safety rules,...
Edible jellyfish are mainly consumed and marketed in Southeastern Countries, generally produced by a multi-phase drying process, using mixtures of salt and alum. Recently, jellyfish have become very attractive also for Western food markets. They are novel food in Europe and no recognized handling/processing steps have been set up yet. Moreover, no...
Growing evidence suggests dietary antioxidants reduce the risk of several cancers. Grape seeds extracts (GSE) are a rich source of polyphenols known to have antioxidant, chemopreventive and anticancer properties. Herein, we investigated the in vitro effects and putative action mechanisms of a grape seed extract (GSE) on human breast cancer cells (M...
The jellyfish Rhizostoma pulmo, Macrì 1778 (Cnidaria, Rhizostomae) undergoes recurrent outbreaks in the Mediterranean coastal waters, with large biomass populations representing a nuisance or damage for marine and maritime activities. A preliminary overview of the antioxidant activity (AA) of R. pulmo proteinaceous compounds is provided here based...
The edible jellyfish world fishery, mostly based in Southeast Asia, generates a global catch annually exceeding 750,000 tons, with increasing demands expanding outside Asian markets. Known for its nutritional and medical value in the Chinese pharmacopeia, jellyfish seem to have characteristics of healthy food. Some Mediterranean jellyfish species (...
In this study, chitosan based microbeads containing Ungeremine, an antimicrobial alkaloid particularly active against Penicillium roqueforti, a filamentous fungus responsible of the bakery products deterioration, were prepared by external gelation by using sodium tripolyphosphate (TPP) as crosslinking agent. The stability of the beads, as well as t...
Plants can frequently experience low oxygen concentrations due to environmental factors such as flooding or waterlogging. It has been reported that both anoxia and the transition from anoxia to re-oxygenation determine a strong imbalance in the cellular redox state involving the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and nitric oxide (NO). Pla...
In many coastal areas local increases in jellyfish populations are becoming recurrent phenomena due to climate change and several anthropogenic stressors, including eutrophication and pollution. Jellyfish blooms are often responsible for negative impacts on the marine environment and human activities: nevertheless, they can become a valuable resour...
Background
Since the 1960s substantial increase of migration fluxes to Western Europe led to the consequent introduction of new ethnic foods, such as jellyfish from Southeast Asia. In addition, climatic and anthropogenic causes are shaping dramatic changes in marine biodiversity and food sources across world oceans, including the Mediterranean Sea...
Jellyfish are recorded with increasing frequency and magnitude in many coastal areas and several species display biological features comparable to the most popular Asiatic edible jellyfish. The biochemical and antioxidant properties of wild gelatinous biomasses, in terms of nutritional and nutraceutical values, are still largely unexplored. In this...
Polyphenols, secondary metabolites widely present in plant kingdom, are known for their positive effects on human health, such as treatments of degenerative disease and cancer. Many dietary polyphenols show anti-inflammatory, immunomodulatory and antioxidant properties and they are proposed as chemopreventive agents for many skin disorders and canc...
Supplementary Information (PDF, 439 KB)
On a global scale, jellyfish populations in coastal marine ecosystems exhibit increasing trends of abundance. High-density outbreaks may directly or indirectly affect human economical and recreational activities, as well as public health. As the interest in biology of marine jellyfish grows, a number of jellyfish metabolites with healthy potential,...
The risk of chronic diseases has been shown to be inversely related to tomato intake and the lycopene levels in serum and tissue. Cis-isomers represent approximately 50%-80% of serum lycopene, while dietary lycopene maintains the isomeric ratio present in the plant sources with about 95% of all-trans-lycopene. Supercritical CO(2) extraction (S-CO(2...
Liver is an important target for thyroid hormone actions. T(3) exerts its effects by two mechanisms: (i) Genomic actions consisting of T(3) link to nuclear receptors that bind responsive elements in the promoter of target genes, (ii) non-genomic actions including integrin αvb3 receptor-mediated MAPK/ERK and PI3K/Akt/mTOR-C1 activation. SREBP-1a, SR...
Dietary phytochemicals offer protection
from oxidative damages and lower the risks of chronic
diseases, by complementary and overlapping action
mechanisms. These include antioxidant activity, regulation
of gene expression and cell cycle, stimulation
of the immune and hormonal systems and modulation
of cell–cell communication. Gap-junction intercell...
Nitric oxide (NO) has been shown to be an essential regulatory molecule in plant response to pathogen infection in synergy
with reactive oxygen species (ROS). At the present, nothing is known about the role of NO in disease resistance to nematode
infection. We used a resistant tomato cultivar with different sensitivity to avirulent and virulent pop...
The organization of the cnidarian nervous system has been widely documented in polyps and medusae, but little is known about the nervous system of planula larvae, which give rise to adult forms after settling and metamorphosis. We describe histological and cytological features of the nervous system in planulae of the hydrozoan Clava multicornis. Th...
A nutritionally relevant phytochemical such as lycopene, found in tomatoes and other fruits, has been proposed to have health-promoting effects by modulating hormonal and immune systems, metabolic pathways, and gap junction intercellular communication (GJIC). This work analyzes lycopene extracts, obtained from tomato and tomato added with grape see...
Gap junctional intercellular communication (GJIC) is used to control cell proliferation. It is not surprising then that a lack of GJIC (i.e., during loss of contact inhibition among adjacent cells) is associated with cancer promotion/progression. There also seems to be a link between ineffective GJIC and increases in inflammatory events. Interestin...
Extracellular ATP formation from ADP and inorganic phosphate, attributed to the activity of a cell surface ATP synthase, has so far only been reported in cultures of some proliferating and tumoral cell lines. We now provide evidence showing the presence of a functionally active ecto-F(o)F(1)-ATP synthase on the plasma membrane of normal tissue cell...
The antioxidant content and the antioxidant capacity of both hydrophilic and lipophilic antioxidant extracts from four "early potato" cultivars, grown in two different locations (Racale and Monteroni), were examined. There was a considerable variation in carotenoid content and weak differences in the ascorbic acid concentration of the examined cult...
Alpha-tocopherol is the most biologically active component of vitamin E and is synthesized only by photosynthetic organisms. Two heterotrophic cell lines of sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) of differing alpha-tocopherol biosynthetic capability, three-fold higher in the high synthesizing cell line, HT, than in the low synthesizing one, LT, were prev...
The enzymatic activity, subcellular localization, and immunolocalization of plant lipoxygenase (LOX) in strawberry fruits (Fragaria x ananassa, Duch) were investigated. Chemical and enzymatic properties of LOX have been characterized, and the LOX capability of oxygenating free and esterified unsaturated fatty acids into C6 volatile aldehydes has be...
The genome of pea (Pisum sativum) contains genes encoding a family of distinct lipoxygenases (LOX). Among these, LOXN2 showed eight exons encoding a 93.7-kD enzyme, harboring two C-terminal deletions and an unusual arginine/threonine-tyrosine motif in the domain considered to control the substrate specificity. LOXN2, when overexpressed in yeast, ex...
Strawberry is a plant species widely grown in the temperate regions of the world, and it is a commercially important non-climacteric soft fruit. To gain insight into the biochemical determinants associated with fruit ripening, we analysed protein expression and volatile aroma compounds during fruit ripening. In addition we assayed lipoxygenase (LOX...
Mercury has received considerable media focus because it is present in dental amalgams and seafood. There is potential exposure in gas meters, thermometers and fluorescent lamps workers. To evaluate its possible epigenetic carcinogen effect, cultures of human keratinocytes were treated with increasing doses of HgCl2 for 30 min, 24 h and of CH3HgCl...
Cyst nematode Heterodera goettingiana is a major pest for pea crop. Sources of resistance to this disease have been found in germplasm pea, although the mechanism of host resistance is still obscure. Lipoxygenases (LOX) have been proposed to be involved in the defence of host-parasite interactions. Resistant accession displayed at 24–72 h after nem...
The heat-shock (HS) response of two genotypes (cv. Onice, winter type, and cv. Georgie, spring type) of barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) was compared. Protein synthesis was markedly reduced by HS in roots and coleoptiles of both genotypes. The reduction in cv. Onice was higher than in cv. Georgie. The pattern of cytosolic, membrane and cell wall HSPs wa...
It has been previously described that Aroclor 1254 can inhibit GJIC in rodent liver cells where it is known to be a tumor promoter, while the possibility that Aroclor 1254 exerts its inhibitory effects on GJIC in human keratinocytes and acts as a human skin tumor promoter, deserves further attention. In the present study the effects of Aroclor 1254...
A proteinaceous inhibitor of papain was purified to apparent homogeneity from mature seeds of common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.). After four chromatographic steps, the papain inhibitor was purified 219-fold with 12% recovery. On the basis of papain inhibitory activity, cystatins have been estimated to account for about 0.1% of the total protein co...
Projects
Projects (9)
The objective of the GoJelly project is to develop, test and promote new and useful products from jellyfish biomass.
The Partners of GoJelly aims to develop a gelatinous solution to microplastic pollution by developing prototype microplastics filter for commercial and public use, where the main raw material is jellyfish mucus, in addition to food for humans and feed for aquaculture, as well as fertilisers for agriculture.
The role of CNR-ISPA is to verify and validate the possible food uses of some species of jellyfish, also in collaboration with food industry.
The objective of the GoJelly project is to develop, test and promote new and useful products from jellyfish biomass.
The Partners of GoJelly aims to develop a gelatinous solution to microplastic pollution by developing prototype microplastics filter for commercial and public use, where the main raw material is jellyfish mucus, in addition to food for humans and feed for aquaculture, as well as fertilisers for agriculture.
The role of CNR-ISPA is to verify and validate the possible food uses of some species of jellyfish, also in collaboration with food industry.
