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Introduction
Publications
Publications (163)
Staphylococcus aureus is a major mastitis pathogen in dairy cattle worldwide, responsible for substantial economic losses. Environmental factors, milking routine, and good maintenance of milking equipment have been described as important factors to prevent intramammary infections (IMI). Staphylococcus aureus IMI can be widespread within the farm or...
Staphylococcus aureus is a major pathogen causing intramammary infection and mastitis in dairy cows. S. aureus genotypes (GT) can differ significantly in their ability to diffuse and persist in the herd; while the association of virulence gene carriage with epidemiological behavior remains unclear, a role for secreted proteins has been postulated....
In dairy ruminants, a diet supplemented with feed rich in unsaturated fatty acids can be an effective medium to increase the health-promoting properties of milk, although their effect on the pathways/genes involved in these processes has not been properly and completely defined to date. To improve our knowledge of the cell’s activity in specific co...
Natural whey cultures (NWC) are undefined multiple-strain bacterial starter communities that can be affected by even small changes along the entire dairy chain. We applied a multidisciplinary approach to investigate how the addition of 2 mycotoxin-detoxifying agents [sodium smectite and lignocellulose-based material (B1); leonardite and betaine (B2...
An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.
Post-weaning diarrhea (PWD) in pigs has mainly an infectious basis and control strategies are centred on antibiotics added to the diet. Given concerns on the spread of multi-resistant bacteria, it is necessary to develop alternative prophylactic approaches to control PWD in piglets. The most promising alternative strategies are based on substances...
Early feed restriction of lambs may program animals to achieve reduced feed efficiency traits as a consequence of permanent mitochondrial dysfunction. The hypothesis at the background of the present study is that dietary administration of L-Carnitine (a compound that promotes the activation and transportation of fatty acids into the mitochondria) d...
The present study evaluated the effects of feed supplemented with two dietary sources of n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs; fish oil and extruded flaxseed) on the gut microbiota, caecal fermentations, gastrointestinal histology, and histochemistry in rabbits. Fifteen male New Zealand White rabbits were divided into three groups (n = 5/group) a...
In the present study, for the first time, high sensitive quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) and digital droplet polymerase chain reaction (ddPCR) assays were developed to detect and quantify total eumycetes with potential application in several food matrices and to specifically determine the level of contamination by Saccharomycopsis fib...
Goji berries show health benefits, although the possible mechanisms of action, including compositional changes in the gut microbiome, are still not fully understood. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of Goji berry supplementation on microbiota composition and metabolites in the digestive tracts of rabbits. Twenty-eight New Zealand Wh...
Background
Human milk is a vehicle for bioactive compounds and beneficial bacteria which promote the establishment of a healthy gut microbiome of newborns, especially of preterm infants. Pasteurized donor human milk (PDHM) is the second-best option when preterm mother’s own milk is unavailable. Since pasteurization affect the microbiological qualit...
The bovine udder is colonized by a huge quantity of microorganisms that constitute the intramammary ecosystem, with a specific role in modulating not only udder homeostasis and mastitis susceptibility, but also the quality of the dairy products. However, generating high-quality bacterial DNA can be critical, especially starting from a complex biolo...
The bovine rumen epithelium has a crucial role in nutrient uptake and maintenance of ruminal health. This study aimed to explore the role of microRNAs (miRNAs) in the epithelial transcriptome during transition from forage to a high-grain diet and potential modulation by supplementation with a phytogenic feed additive (PYT). Rumen biopsies were coll...
Predicting bull fertility is one of the main challenges for the dairy breeding industry and
artificial insemination (AI) centers. Semen evaluation performed in the AI center is not
fully reliable to determine the level of bull fertility. Spermatozoa are rich in active miRNA.
Specific sperm-borne miRNAs can be linked to fertility. The aim of our stu...
The cows receiving antibiotics for intra-mammary infection (IMI) produce milk that cannot be marketed. This is considered waste milk (WM), and a convenient option for farmers is using it as calf food. However, adding to the risk of selecting resistant bacteria, residual antibiotics might interfere with the gut microbiome development and influence g...
INTRODUCCIÓN Estudios previos de nuestro grupo han demostrado cómo la restricción de alimento en la fase de lactancia de corderos programa a los animales para mostrar una reducción de la eficiencia alimentaria durante el cebo (Santos et al., 2018), fundamentalmente debido a una disfunción mitocondrial y a un aumento del grado de engrasamiento. La a...
Streptococcus uberis, an environmental pathogen responsible also for contagious transmission, has been increasingly implicated in clinical mastitis (CM) cases in Europe. We described a 4-month epidemiological investigation of Strep. uberis CM cases in an Italian dairy farm. We determined molecular characteristics and phenotypic antimicrobial resist...
Historic Rebel (HR) cheese is an Italian heritage cheese, produced from raw milk during the summer grazing period in the Alps. The aim of this work was (i) to characterize the cheese microbiota, by 16S rRNA gene amplicons sequencing, and the volatile and non-volatile lipophilic fraction, by Gas Chromatography and Dynamic Headspace Extraction-Gas Ch...
Mastitis represents one of the major economic and health threats to the livestock sector associated with reduction in milk quality, loss of production and is a major reason for culling. Somatic cell score (SCS) is used as a criterion in breeding programmes to select cows genetically less susceptible to mastitis. The relevance of SCS as a predictor...
Historic Rebel ( HR ) cheese is an Italian heritage cheese, produced from raw milk during the summer grazing period in the Alps. The aim of this work was i) to characterize the cheese microbiota, by 16S rRNA gene amplicons sequencing and the volatile and non-volatile lipophilic fraction, by Gas Chromatography and Dynamic Headspace - Extraction Gas...
The microbiota is extremely important for the animal’s health, but, to date, knowledge on the intestinal microbiota of the rabbit is very limited. This study aimed to describe bacterial populations that inhabit the different gastrointestinal compartments of the rabbit: stomach, duodenum, jejunum, ileum, caecum, and colon. Samples of the luminal con...
Milk protein genes are known to be highly polymorphic. Several studies have shown the influence of milk proteins genetic variants and casein haplotypes on milk nutritional and technological properties. From 1990, the analysis of caseins polymorphism gained new attention due to the concern about possible negative effects of CSN2*A1 on human health....
Nowadays, consumers are more aware and conscious about health concerns related to foods, which increase their demand for more safe food, particularly meats, free of additives such as preservatives, and if so with natural ones. In line with this, bacteriocinogenic lactic acid bacteria (LAB) and their bacteriocins have been widely screened and studie...
Milk microbiota represents a key point in raw milk cheese production and contributes to the development of typical flavor and texture for each type of cheese. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the influence of chlorine products usage for cleaning and sanitizing the milking equipment on (i) raw milk microbiota; (ii) the deriving whey-star...
Lactating cows are routinely treated at dry-off with antibiotic infusions in each quarter for the cure and prevention of pathogenic intramammary infection, which remains the most common disease in dairy herds. This approach is known as blanket dry-cow therapy, usually effective for the prevention and cure of infections, but has been shown to potent...
Staphylococcus aureus is one of the major pathogens responsible for intramammary infections in small ruminants, causing severe economic losses in dairy farms. In addition, S. aureus can contaminate milk and dairy products and produce staphylococcal enterotoxins, being responsible for staphylococcal food poisoning. Currently, data on the population...
Animal health is affected by many factors such as metabolic stress, the immune system, and epidemiological features that interconnect. The immune system has evolved along with the phylogenetic evolution as a highly refined sensing and response system, poised to react against diverse infectious and non-infectious stressors for better survival and ad...
Staphylococcus aureus is recognized worldwide as one of the main contagious mastitis agents in cattle and can express a set of antimicrobial resistance genes and virulence-associated genes that explain the wide range of outcomes of intramammary infections. Staphylococcus aureus strains are heterogeneous: their different resistance and virulence pat...
Staphylococcus aureus is one of the most important pathogens causing mastitis in cattle, and it is responsible for economic losses in dairy herds worldwide. The PCR amplification of the 16S-23S rRNA intergenic spacer (ribosomal spacer PCR, RS-PCR) allows a rapid classification of the strains in genotypes and genotypic clusters (CL), which are chara...
Milk and dairy products could contain a variety of microorganisms, deriving from the environment or from infected udders, becoming an important source of foodborne pathogens. The main microorganisms involved in mastitis are Staphylococcus aureus, Prototheca spp., Mycoplasma spp. and Streptococcus spp., while the principal pathogens responsible for...
Background:
Sperm epigenetics is an emerging area of study supported by observations reporting that abnormal sperm DNA methylation patterns are associated with infertility. Here, we explore cytosine-guanine dinucleotides (CpGs) methylation in high (HM) and low motile (LM) Bos taurus sperm populations separated by Percoll gradient. HM and LM methyl...
Streptococcus uberis is an important causative agent for clinical and subclinical mastitis in dairy cattle. The aim of this study was to develop 2 multiplex PCR assays (mPCR) for the simultaneous detection of virulence factors and housekeeping genes for use when investigating the genetic variability and distribution of Strep. uberis virulence facto...
Introduction:
Hospitals are known to be the most complex entities to manage. In fact, the main problem in healthcare are the expensive needs with limited resources. During the last years the complexity of the nurse manager role has gradually changed from assistance to management. However, nowadays the methods for quantifying the nurse managers' sk...
Post-weaning diarrhoea (PWD) represents the most important threat for the pig industry all over the world with a morbidity over 50% among weaned piglets during outbreaks of the disease. Given the public health concerns about the spread of multi-resistant
bacteria due to the use of antibiotics in livestock, it is necessary to develop alternative str...
At 148 DIM, basal plasma glucose (62.2 vs. 51.6 mg/dL ±3.62, p=.011) and insulin (0.34 vs. 0.13 µg/L ± 0.09, p=.036) concentration were significantly higher in ewes than in goats. After glucose infusion, glucose (p=.06) and insulin (p=.07) concentrations were numerically greatest in ewes. The area under the glucose concentration curve, fractional g...
In dairy cattle, microbiomes are known to affect milk production, well-being and health of the animals. Within the FARM-INN project, the rumen, milk and hindgut microbiomes of dairy cows will be analysed to better understand their contribution to the efficient production of high-quality milk for direct consumption and transformation into cheese and...
Most lactating cows are routinely treated in each quarter with antibiotic at drying off. This is defined as the ‘blanket’ approach, and it is considered effective in preventing new infections and curing the existing infections. However, this farming practice can potentially interfere with the milk microbiota balance, as well as promote the selectio...
The theme of the loss of biodiversity in recent years has become increasingly important as
highlighted by the United Nations General Assembly which declared the 2011–2020 period as the
United Nations Decade on Biodiversity. In this context, the preservation and rational use of
autochthonous cattle breeds play a key role in the maintenance of the bi...
Dry and early lactation periods represent the most critical phases for udder health in cattle, especially in highly productive breeds, such as the Holstein Friesian (HF). On the other hand, some autochthonous cattle breeds, such as the Rendena (REN), have a lower prevalence of mastitis and other transition-related diseases. In this study, milk micr...
PCoA of weighted UniFrac distances represent the differences in milk microbiota structure between each time point for HF and REN.
Average distance between breeds is statistically significant (p = 0.01) for T1 (A), T2 (B), T3 (C), T4 (D) time points.
(TIFF)
Composition of the dry-off and lactating diets for both HF and REN cows.
(PDF)
Taxonomic characterization of milk microbiota differences among breeds at phylum, family and genus level.
List of the bacterial groups with relative abundance > 1% and p-value < 0.05. Average relative abundance per breed (with related standard deviation), as well as Mann-Whitney U-test p-values, are reported.
(PDF)
Species-level analysis of Streptococcus.
The relative abundances of genus Streptococcus is shown for each quarter milk sample in the stacked bar plot (A) and in the pie charts (B). The “Other” category (gray) represents all of the genera that do not belong to the genus Streptococcus; blue bars show how Str. thermophilus is the main species among th...
Correlation plots of SCC vs. microbial relative abundance.
Dotplots represent the Pearson’s correlation coefficient between SCC and the relative abundance of selected bacterial taxa at different levels for all quarter milk samples (REN and HF). For representation purposes, SCC was log-transformed before plotting; only correlations with a p-value of...
Genus level composition along the four time points for REN milk samples.
Relative abundances (with related standard deviation) of the main bacterial groups along the four time points of sampling. On the right, the significance of the Mann-Whitney U-test is reported for each pair-wise comparison. P-values: ***: < 0.005; **: < 0.01; *: < 0.05.
(PDF)
Microbiota composition of outlier samples.
The bacterial abundances at genus level are shown for the 8 discarded samples, as well as the average composition for the remaining REN (n = 43) and HF (n = 74) samples. (A) Relative abundances of the main commensals (green box) and environmental/opportunistic (red box) genera are shown as stacked barplot;...
Genus level composition along the four time points for HF milk samples.
Relative abundances (with related standard deviation) of the main bacterial groups along the four time points of sampling. On the right, the significance of the Mann-Whitney U-test is reported for each pair-wise comparison. P-values: ***: < 0.005; **: < 0.01; *: < 0.05.
(PDF)
Prototheca zopfii (P. zopfii, class Trebouxiophyceae, order Chlorellales, family Chlorellaceae), a non-photosynthetic predominantly free-living unicellular alga, is one of the few pathogens belonging to the plant kingdom. This alga can affect many vertebrate hosts, sustaining systemic infections and diseases such as mastitis in cows. The aim of our...
Pentraxin 3 is the prototypic long pentraxin and is produced by different cell populations (dendritic cells, monocytes/macrophages, endothelial cells, and fibroblasts) after pro-inflammatory stimulation. Different studies demonstrated the up-regulation of PTX3 during mastitis in ruminants, but its role is still unknown. We first investigated the co...
This study deals with the genetic characterisation of two enterocin-producing Enterococcus lactis strains named Q1 and 4CP3 using Randomly Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD)–PCR and the effect of their separate additions in the control of Listeria monocytogenes in refrigerated chicken breast meat. These strains demonstrated interesting in vitro antim...
Biological diversities of multiple kingdoms potentially respond in similar ways to environmental changes. However, studies either compare details of microbial diversity across general vegetation or land use classes or relate details of plant community diversity with the extent of microbially governed soil processes, via physiological profiling. Her...
characterizing Arthropods communities inhabiting soil of organic and conventional farms, by Using DNA metabarcoding approach,
Staphylococcus aureus is recognized worldwide as one of the major agents of dairy cow intra-mammary infections. This microorganism can express a wide spectrum of pathogenic factors used to attach, colonize, invade and infect the host. The present study evaluated 120 isolates from eight different countries that were genotyped by RS-PCR and investiga...
The purpose of the study is to investigate on the so far neglected abnormal trait “weeping teats” in Italian Saanen and Alpine goats to understand its possible relationship with mastitis, by means of the analysis of the somatic cell counts (SSC), and production traits
Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) is recognized worldwide as one of the major agents of dairy cow intra-mammary infections. This microorganism can express a wide spectrum of pathogenic factors used to attach, colonize, invade and infect the host. The present study evaluated 120 isolates from eight different countries that were genotyped by RS-PCR a...
Livestock and food products of animal origin constitute important reservoirs of intestinal and extraintestinal pathogenic Escherichia coli including antibiotic-resistant E. coli isolates. To assess potential risks to public health related to E. coli strains of animal origin in Tunisia, 65 E. coli isolates recovered from healthy animals and food pro...
Fat supplementation plays an important role in defining milk fatty acids (FA) composition of ruminant products. The use of sources rich in linoleic and α -linolenic acid favors the accumulation of conjugated linoleic acids isomers, increasing the healthy properties of milk. Ruminal microbiota plays a pivotal role in defining milk FA composition, an...
In Holstein Friesian dairy cows, selective pressure for increased milk production has led to a higher propensity to disease, including mastitis, when compared to less selected and lower producing dairy breeds. The biology underpinning the higher resistance to disease of such "local breeds" is not fully understood. With the aim of investigating the...
DNA metabarcoding, a promising new technology, involves the direct extraction of DNA from soil samples, PCR amplification of the extracted DNA with specific primers, followed by libraries preparation with sample-specific tags and sequencing through Next Generation Sequencing technologies (Hamilton et al., 2009). In the present study, two combinatio...
A strain of an achlorophyllic alga, named PR24T, was isolated from cow milk samples from the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. Based on 18S rDNA, 28S rRNA, D1/D2 region of the LSU rDNA and SSU rRNA gene sequence similarities, this strain was found to be a member of the genus Prototheca and closely related to Prototheca blaschkeae SAG2064T. However, th...
An autochthonous starter culture was used in the production of Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) Silter raw milk cheese, and compared to a control cheese in order to study its influence on microbial population dynamics during ripening. Curd and cheese at different ripening periods (0, 30, 60 and 200 days) from two independent dairies were analy...
