Sara Falsini

University of Florence | UNIFI · Departiment of Biology

The effects of polyethylene terephthalate micro-nanoplastics (PET-MNPs) were tested on the model freshwater species Spirodela polyrhiza (L.) Schleid., with focus on possible particle-induced epigenetic effects (i.e. alteration of DNA methylation status). MNPs (size ~ 200–300 nm) were produced as water dispersions from PET bottles through repeated c...

In this work, we studied Tanacetum vulgare, Tanacetum parthenium, and Tanacetum corymbosum (Asteraceae) cultivated at the Ghirardi Botanic Garden (Toscolano Maderno, Brescia, Northern Italy) of the University of Milan. An integrative research approach was adopted: microscopic and histochemical, with special focus on the secretory structures respons...

The severe use of conventional pesticides has led to rethinking agriculture protocols for crop protection. In this context, attention has been given to nanopesticides, i.e., formulations containing nanosized particles to deliver poorly soluble bioactive compounds. The aim of this work was to design and prepare nanoparticles from biopolymers such as...

Grapevines require pruning procedures to maintain plant morphology and ensure productivity, and these procedures cause wounds that induce physical and biological host defence mechanisms. Grapevine tissue reactions to wounding resulting from four different pruning methods were assessed. Rapid (immediate) defence reactions were detected in 1-year-old...

Light and electron microscopy observations of Rhamnus alaternus L. infected by Xylella fastidiosa subsp. multiplex. Poster al 98 Convegno della Società di Botanica Italiana.

The University of Florence (UniFi) started participating in the UI GreenMetric ranking in 2018 to measure its commitments toward sustainability. Since then, several actions have been adopted to make advancements in the six categories of the ranking, spanning from the high-quality classroom environment to actions for the well-being of students. UniF...

The increasing demand for food has required intensive use of pesticides which are hazardous to the ecosystem. A valid alternative is represented by biopesticides; however, these molecules are often insoluble in water, and poorly bioavailable. Nanopesticides can be engineered to reach a selected target with controlled release of the active principle...

We studied the self-assembled aggregates of Synperonic 91/5 (SYN) in water solution. This surfactant presents the peculiarity of having an odd number of aliphatic carbons, with a tail composed of C9H19 and C11H23, and the headgroup having an average of 5 ethoxy units. While the general family of CiEOj nonionic surfactants has been widely studied, t...

Solanum lycopersicum L., a crop grown worldwide with a high nutritional value for the human diet, was used to test the impact of microplastics on plant growth, productivity, and fruit quality. Two of the most represented microplastics in soils, polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC), were tested. Plants were grown in pots wit...

Limnospira fusiformis (also known as Spirulina) is a cyanobacterium that is widely cultivated due to its economic importance. It has specific pigments such as phycocyanin that allow it to grow at different light wavelengths compared to other cultivated algae. Our study investigated the effect of yellow (590 nm) and blue (460 nm) light fields on var...

Soil salinity can have various negative consequences on agricultural products, from their quality and production to their aesthetic traits. In this work, the possibility to use salt-affected vegetables, that otherwise would be discarded, as a source of nutraceuticals was explored. To this aim, rocket plants, a vegetable featuring bioactive compound...

Soil salinization become worse in the last decades, leading to reduced crop yields, especially in the Mediterranean basin. Eruca sativa is a common species cultivated in this area with remarkable economic importance. This study aimed at investigating the effect of salinity on this plant, focusing on (i) seedling development in terms of variations i...

Sustainability and circular economy are increasingly pushing for the search of natural materials to foster antiparasitic treatments, especially in the case of economically relevant agricultural cultivations, such as grapevine. In this work, we propose to deliver neem oil, a natural biopesticide loaded into novel nanovectors (nanocapsules) which wer...

Seed-associated microbiota are believed to play a crucial role in seed germination, seedling establishment, and plant growth and fitness stimulation, due to the vertical transmission of a core microbiota from seeds to the next generations. It might be hypothesized that medicinal and aromatic plants could use the seeds as vectors to vertically trans...

Grapevine grafting is an essential practice in viticulture and over the years, various bench grafting techniques have been developed to mechanize the nursery process and to increase the yield in number of viable cuttings. Bench grafting is a fundamental nursery practice that can potentially affect the quality of propagation material also in young d...

The microscopic visualization of nanoparticles in plants is crucial to elucidate the mechanisms of their uptake through the cell wall and plasma membrane and to localize the possible sites of their extracellular or intracellular accumulation. Lignin nanocarriers are polymeric hollow nanocapsules able to contain and transport several bioactive subst...

Sustainability and circular economy are increasingly pushing for the search of natural materials to foster antiparasitic treatments, especially in the case of economically relevant agricultural cultivations, such as grapevine. In this work, we propose to deliver neem oil, a natural biopesticide loaded into novel nanovectors (nanocapsules) which wer...

Due to the increasing evidence of widespread plastic pollution in the air, the impact on plants of airborne particles of polycarbonate (PC), polyethyleneterephthalate (PET), polyethylene (PE), and polyvinylchloride (PVC) was tested by administering pristine and aged airborne micro-nanoplastics (MNPs) to Tillandsia usneoides for two weeks. Here we s...

Spartium junceum L. is a typical species of Mediterranean shrubland areas, also grown in gardens and parks as an ornamental. In recent years in Europe, S. junceum has been recurrently found to be infected by different subspecies and genotypes of the quarantine regulated bacterium Xylella fastidiosa (Xf). This work presents for the first time the an...

This is the first contribution about the histochemistry of vegetative and reproductive aerial organs in the genus Piper L. Piper malgassicum accumulates alkaloids and terpenes in the epidermis and the underlying layers of parenchyma, both in the leaves, in the stems and in anthers. Some idioblasts appear to contain a large amount of secondary metab...

• Within the Open Science project entitled “Botanic Garden, factory of molecules”, a multidisciplinary study approach was applied on Ballota acetabulosa (L.) Benth., preserved at the Ghirardi Botanic Garden (Toscolano Maderno, BS, Italy). • Micromorphological, histochemical, and phytochemical investigations were conducted on the vegetative and repr...

Cyanobacteria are prokaryotes whose taxonomy follows the same rules of a code (the International Botanical Nomenclature Code, IBNC) built for eukaryotic photosynthetic organisms. Hence, names of cyanobacteria follow the same rules and are assigned to biological entities (species) that should correspond to eukaryotic species. The main difficulty in...

Lodoicea maldivica (J.F.Gmel.) Pers. (Arecaceae), ‘Coco de Mer’, is a palm, growing as endemic in the Seychelles islands. Its fruit weighs up to 20 kg and is characterized by a fleshy and fibrous envelope surrounding the nutlike portion. The present work combines a morpho‐anatomical and a phytochemical analysis of the fruit exocarp and mesocarp. Th...

This paper reviews different approaches to modelling the energy transition towards a zero carbon economy. It identifies a number of limitations in current approaches such as a lack of consideration of out-of-equilibrium situations (like an energy transition) and non-linear feedbacks. To tackle those issues, the new open source integrated assessment...

two new species of genus Piper L. from Madagascar: Piper malgassicum and Piper tsarasotrae, were analyzed to investigate their phylogenetic position and evolutionary history. Both plastidial and nuclear markers were used for sequencing. The plastidial markers (ndhF and the trnL intron) showed a close relationship between the two species with respec...

Environmental concerns have driven scientists to research new eco-friendly approaches for the preparation of nanosystems. For this purpose, novel bio-polymers have been selected. Among these, one of the most promising is lignin, which is biodegradable and biocompatible. Additionally, lignin is one of the main by-products of the paper industry and c...

First developed for biomedical and industrial applications, nanovectors have recently been extended to agriculture. Therefore, innovative plant growing procedures making use of nanoparticles should be adapted to sustainable processes and materials. This work aims at proposing newly synthetized polymeric nanocapsules (NCs) to be used as biocompatibl...

Cupressus sempervirens L. (cypress) is frequently affected by the fungus Seiridium cardinale (Wag.) Sutton & Gibson, the cause the so called cypress canker disease. This investigation deals with the microscopical analysis of the development of the traumatic resin ducts and the ultrastructure of the activity of the epithelial cells of the duct itse...

Aims Based on a recent taxonomic revision of the genus Odontarrhena in Albania, our work aimed at comparing the taxa and populations of this genus in terms of nickel accumulation and levels of other metals in relation to their concentrations in the soil at distinct Albanian ultramafic outcrops. Methods Several populations of different Odontarrhena...

Lipid-based soft nanovectors are widely used for delivery purposes in many fields of applications. Though generally considered a class of molecules with superior biocompatibility, in recent times researchers have risen concerns with regards to the sustainability of preparation procedures. In particular, when large scale production is involved as in...

Waste management is becoming an urgent element of sustainability where university campuses can provide a substantial contribution in: (1) offering the competence necessary to optimize waste management and (2) giving the example in how to correctly manage waste in a relatively large entity such as in a university campus. In this area, the University...

This paper reports the results of three years of work at the University of Florence dedicated to waste management and other sustainability-related activities. The rationale that guided this effort was to use the prestige of the University to disseminate knowledge about good practices of waste management with the local society. The results presented...

MEDEAS (Modelling the Energy Development under Environmental And Socioeconomic constraint) World is a new global-aggregated energy-economy-environmental model, which runs from 1995 to 2050. In this work, we tested the MEDEAS world model to reproduce the IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change) GHG (Green House Gases) emission pathways consisten...

Humankind faces today a number of fundamental challenges related to its interaction with the planetary ecosystem: climate change, mineral depletion, species extinction, overexploitation of resources and more. As the situation worsens, these challenges appear more and more visible and it is a common opinion that – at some point – a majority of peopl...

The collapse of large social systems, often referred to as “civilizations” or “empires,” is a well-known historical phenomenon, but its origins are the object of an unresolved debate. In this paper, we present a simple biophysical model which we link to the concept that societies collapse because of the “diminishing returns of complexity” proposed...

The Global Carbon Budget is the cumulative carbon emissions that human activities can generate while limiting the global temperature increase to less than 2°C. On this basis, most countries ratified the Paris Agreement 2015, pledging to reduce national emissions and the impacts of climate change. The European Union has planned to reduce emissions b...

The Paris Agreement, ratified in 2015, pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions within a Global Carbon Budget that limits the global temperature increase to less than 2 °C. With the Roadmap 2050 mitigation measures, the European Union has a target to reduce emissions by 80% of their 1990 value by 2050 but without giving an estimation or a maximum...

Purpose In the age of internet memes spread around the world in very short time, it has been already proved that, in several cases, the mechanism of propagation is very similar to a flu infection. However, this model turns out to be invalid if the spreading is generated by the mass media (TV, radio and the like). This paper aims to explore for the...

The collapse of large social systems, often referred to as civilizations or empires, is a well known historical phenomenon, but its origins are the object of an unresolved debate. In this paper, we present a simple biophysical model which we link to the concept that societies collapse because of the diminishing returns of complexity proposed by Jos...

The Global Carbon Budget is the cumulative carbon emissions that human activities can generate while limiting the global temperature increase to less than 2°C. On this basis, most countries ratified the Paris Agreement 2015, pledging to reduce national emissions and the impacts of climate change. The European Union has planned to reduce emissions b...

Nanoscience is a powerful tool to study matter at the scale where cooperative actions among atomic and molecular assemblies are effective, that is, in the nanometer range. Its application to technology is expected to bring new ways to improve our life by means of applications in the field such as environmental and material science, pharmacy, and me...

This chapter describes the topic of gene therapy based on colloidal drug delivery, as an alternative to the use of viral carriers. Non-viral vectors are promising transfection agents and do not suffer from limitations related to toxicity and immunogenic effects. In particular, lipid-based aggregates are generally considered biocompatible and versat...

Gene therapy is based on nucleic acid delivery to pathogenic cells in order to modulate their gene expression. The most used non viral vectors are lipid-based nanoaggregates, which are safer than viral carriers and have been shown to assemble easily with both DNA and RNA. However, the transfection efficiency of non viral carriers still needs to be...

The complexation of siRNA (small interfering RNA) with cationic micelles was studied using time dependent synchrotron SAXS. Micelles were formed by two types of divalent cationic surfactants, i.e. Gemini bis(quaternary ammonium) bromide with variable spacer length (12-3-12, 12-6-12, 12-12-12) and a weak electrolyte surfactant (SH14) with triazine h...

Cancer molecular investigation revealed a huge molecular heterogeneity between different types of cancers as well as among cancer patients affected by the same cancer type. This implies the necessity of a personalized approach for cancer diagnosis and therapy, on the basis of the development of standardized protocols to facilitate the application o...

Sequence-specific gene silencing, known as interference of RNA (RNAi), is a natural process which can be exploited for knocking-down specific genes, involved in the insurgence/development of pathological processes. In 2001 the discovery that dsRNA of 19-25 bp (siRNA) can induce gene silencing without immuno-response turned RNAi into a promising tec...