The causal dependence of present plant knowledge on herbals—Contemporary medicinal plant use in Campania (Italy) compared to Matthioli (1568)

Aim of the study

Plant use has been the subject of many codices, documents and books and still is the subject of many scientific articles, trivial books and brochures. These texts, both historical and recent, exert a strong influence on local plant use, a means of knowledge transmission in particular European studies neglect to consider. Therefore, we determine the causal influence of historical texts on present medicinal plant knowledge using the example of Matthioli (1568) and contemporary ethnobotanical literature from Campania.

Materials and methods

We used Bayesian statistical inference and in particular the Bayesian Additive Regression Trees (BART) model to determine the causal effect of Matthioli on contemporary medicinal plant use in Campania.

Results

The estimation of the average increment of finding a plant species mentioned for a certain use category caused by Matthioli is about 20%, conditionally on the available data. Matthioli's effect is not negligible and lies between 14 and 25% with a high probability.

Conclusions

Studies on contemporary medicinal plant use in Europe over the last two to three decades still include the knowledge of the texts from the Renaissance and the classical writers. To what extent the remaining 80% contain autochthonous knowledge is difficult to assess. Considering the long-lasting effect of Matthioli, more recent books, brochures and newspapers very likely also exerted an influence. As well, television and radio reports on the results of pharmacological and clinical studies and, more recently, the world wide web show an ever-increasing influence.     

Identification of a founder <Emphasis Type="Italic">BRCA2</Emphasis> mutation in Sardinian breast cancer families

The population of Sardinia is characterized by a relatively low level of genetic heterogeneity: therefore ‘founder mutations’ can be expected to be found. We analysed 17 probands from families with high incidence of breast cancer or breast and ovarian cancer by sequencing the full-length coding regions of BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes. A novel BRCA2 frameshift mutation, 3951del3insAT, which produces a protein truncated at codon 1258, was observed in six patients with BC from the same village. The mutation was not found in unaffected females (matched on basis of ethnicity and age) with no family history of cancer. Haplotype analysis strongly suggests that all affected persons had a common ancestor. The identification of this clinically significant founder mutation may facilitate screening/testing for inherited risk of breast cancer.     

Genome-wide scan with nearly 700?000 SNPs in two Sardinian sub-populations suggests some regions as candidate targets for positive selection

This paper explores the genetic structure and signatures of natural selection in different sub-populations from the Island of Sardinia, exploiting information from nearly 700 000 autosomal SNPs genotyped with the Affymetrix Genome-Wide Human SNP 6.0 Array. The genetic structure of the Sardinian population and its position within the context of other Mediterranean and European human groups were investigated in depth by comparing our data with publicly available data sets. Principal components and admixture analyses suggest a clustering of the examined samples in two significantly differentiated sub-populations (Ogliastra and Southern Sardinia), as confirmed by AMOVA (F_ST=0.011; P<0.001). Differentiation of these sub-populations was still evident when they were pooled together with supplementary Sardinian samples from HGDP and compared with several other European, North-African and Near Eastern populations, confirming the uniqueness of the Sardinian genetic background. Moreover, by applying several statistical approaches aimed at assessing differences at the SNP level, the highest differentiated genomic regions between Ogliastra and Southern Sardinia were thus investigated via an extended haplotype homozygosity (EHH)-based test to point out potential selective sweeps. Using this approach, 40 genomic regions were detected, with significant differences between Ogliastra and Southern Sardinia. These regions were subsequently investigated using a long-range haplotype test, which found significant REHH values for SNPs rs11070188 and rs11070192 in the Ogliastra sub-population. In the light of these results and the overlap of the different computed statistics, the region encompassing these loci can be considered a strong candidate to have undergone selective pressure in Ogliastra.     

A Case of Brachymetatarsia From Medieval Sardinia (Italy)

Archaeological excavations carried out in the Medieval village of Geridu (Sardinia) uncovered several burials dating to the late 13th or the first half of 14th century. Among these individuals, the skeleton of an adult female showing a bilateral abnormal shortness of the fourth metatarsal bone was identified. Bilaterality and absence of other skeletal anomalies allow to rule out an acquired aetiology of the disease and to support a diagnosis of congenital brachymetatarsia. Such a rare deformity has a clinical incidence of 0.02% to 0.05%, with strong predominance of the female gender. To our knowledge, no other cases of brachymetatarsia have been reported in paleopathology so far. Anat Rec, 297:650–652, 2014. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Water Quality and Mortality from Coronary Artery Disease in Sardinia: A Geospatial Analysis

The role of water hardness on human health is still debated, ranging from beneficial to harmful. Before the rise of drinking bottled water, it was a common habit to obtain supplies of drinking water directly from spring-fed public fountains. According to the geographic location, spring waters are characterized by a variable content of mineral components. In this ecological study, for the first time in Sardinia, Italy, the spatial association between spring water quality/composition and standardized mortality ratio (SMR) for coronary artery disease (CAD) in the decade from 1981 to 1991 was investigated using data retrieved from published databases. In a total of 377 municipalities, 9918 deaths due to CAD, including acute myocardial infarction (AMI), ICD-9 code 410, and ischemic heart disease (IHD), ICD-9 code 411–414, were retrieved. A conditional autoregressive model with spatially structured random effects for each municipality was used. The average SMR for CAD in municipalities with a predominantly “soft” (<30 mg/L) or “hard” (≥30 mg/L) water was, respectively, 121.4 ± 59.1 vs. 104.7 ± 38.2 (p = 0.025). More specifically, an inverse association was found between elevated calcium content in spring water and cardiovascular mortality (AMI: r = −0.123, p = 0.032; IHD: r = −0.146, p = 0.009) and borderline significance for magnesium (AMI: r = −0.131, p = 0.054; IHD: r = −0.138, p = 0.074) and bicarbonate (IHD: r = −0.126, p = 0.058), whereas weak positive correlations were detected for sodium and chloride. The lowest CAD mortality was observed in geographic areas (North-West: SMR 0.92; South-East: SMR 0.88), where calcium- and bicarbonate-rich mineral waters were consumed. Our results, within the limitation of an ecological study, confirm the beneficial role of waters with high content in calcium and bicarbonate against coronary artery disease.     

A Deeper Insight into Evolutionary Patterns and Phylogenetic History of ORF Virus through the Whole Genome Sequencing of the First Italian Strains

Orf virus (ORFV) is distributed worldwide and is the causative agent of contagious ecthyma that mainly occurs in sheep and goats. This disease was reported for the first time at the end of 18th century in Europe but very little is currently known about the temporal and geographic origins of this virus. In the present study, the use of new Italian whole genomes allowed for better inference on the evolutionary history of ORFV. In accordance with previous studies, two genome types (S and G) were described for infection of sheep and goats, respectively. These two well-differentiated groups of genomes originated for evolutive convergence in the late 1800s in two different areas of the world (Europe for S type and Asia for G type), but it was only in the early 1900s that the effective size of ORFV increased among hosts and the virus spread across the whole European continent. The Italian strains which were sequenced in the present study were isolated on the Mediterranean island of Sardinian and showed to be exclusive to this geographic area. One of them is likely representative of the early European forms of ORFV which infected sheep and became extinct about one century ago. Such an ancient Sardinian strain may have reached the island simple by chance, where it quickly adapted to the new habitat.     

Blood and hair lead levels in boys and girls living in two Sardinian towns at different risks of lead pollution

This study reports blood and hair lead levels measured in 1998 in 222 children from two Sardinian towns: Portoscuso and Sestu. Portoscuso is in a polluted area of Sardinia due to its vicinity to the industrial zone of Portovesme. As a consequence of its economy and location, Sestu is not exposed to lead pollution. Blood lead (PbB) concentration was determined in heparinized venous blood samples by graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrophotometry (AAS). Hair lead (PbH) concentration was determined by inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES). With respect to blood lead levels, the boys of Portoscuso have the highest arithmetic mean value (11.30 microg/dL), followed by the Portoscuso girls (7.39 microg/dL); they are followed, but with much lower values, by the boys (4.09 microg/dL) and girls (3.34 microg/dL) of Setsu. For hair lead levels, the Portoscuso boys have the highest arithmetic mean value (15.51 microg/g), followed by the Portoscuso girls (8.82 microg/g) and the Sestu boys (4.03 microg/g) and girls (2.83 microg/g). Therefore the mean values of PbB and PbH follow similar patterns in the boys and girls of the two Sardinian towns. Two-way ANOVA reveals a significant effect of sex and town on log PbB and log PbH. Moreover, values of the Bravais-Pearson coefficients of correlation between log PbB and log PbH are statistically significant for the total sample (r=0.5086; P<0.001), for males (r=0.4275; P<0.01), and for females (r=0.4859, P<0.001). The sensitivity of the hair lead analysis in identifying lead concentrations above 10 microg/g is 49%. The results support the hypothesis that hair lead levels can be considered an indicator of different relative exposure of populations to lead pollution.