Emerging contaminants in agricultural ecosystems: impact of selected pharmaceutical on water and soil ecology and pratical implications

Pharmaceuticals are useful tools to prevent and treat human and animal diseases. Following administration, a significant fraction of pharmaceuticals is excreted unaltered into faeces and urine and may enter the aquatic ecosystem and agricultural soil through irrigation with recycled water, constituting a significant source of emerging contaminants into the environment. Understanding major factors influencing their environmental fate is consequently needed to value the risk, reduce contamination, and set up bioremediation technologies. The antiviral drug Tamiflu (oseltamivir carboxylate, OC) has received recent attention due to the potential use as a first line defence against H5N1 and H1N1 influenza viruses. Research has shown that OC is not removed during conventional wastewater treatments, thus having the potential to enter surface water bodies. A series of laboratory experiments investigated the fate and the removal of OC in surface water systems in Italy and Japan and in a municipal wastewater treatment plant. A preliminary laboratory study investigated the persistence of the active antiviral drug in water samples from an irrigation canal in northern Italy (Canale Emiliano Romagnolo). After an initial rapid decrease, OC concentration slowly decreased during the remaining incubation period. Approximately 65% of the initial OC amount remained in water at the end of the 36-day incubation period. A negligible amount of OC was lost both from sterilized water and from sterilized water/sediment samples, suggesting a significant role of microbial degradation. Stimulating microbial processes by the addition of sediments resulted in reduced OC persistence. Presence of OC (1.5 μg mL-1) did not significantly affect the metabolic potential of the water microbial population, that was estimated by glyphosate and metolachlor mineralization. In contrast, OC caused an initial transient decrease in the size of the indigenous microbial population of water samples. A second laboratory study focused on basic processes governing the environmental fate of OC in surface water from two contrasting aquatic ecosystems of northern Italy, the River Po and the Venice Lagoon. Results of this study confirmed the potential of OC to persist in surface water. However, the addition of 5% of sediments resulted in rapid OC degradation. The estimated half-life of OC in water/sediment of the River Po was 15 days. After three weeks of incubation at 20 °C, more than 8% of 14C-OC evolved as 14CO2 from water/sediment samples of the River Po and Venice Lagoon. OC was moderately retained onto coarse sediments from the two sites. In water/sediment samples of the River Po and Venice Lagoon treated with 14C-OC, more than 30% of the 14C-residues remained water-extractable after three weeks of incubation. The low affinity of OC to sediments suggests that the presence of sediments would not reduce its bioavailability to microbial degradation. Another series of laboratory experiments investigated the fate and the removal of OC in two surface water ecosystems of Japan and in the municipal wastewater treatment plant of the city of Bologna, in Northern Italy. The persistence of OC in surface water ranged from non-detectable degradation to a half-life of 53 days. After 40 days, less than 3% of radiolabeled OC evolved as 14CO2. The presence of sediments (5%) led to a significant increase of OC degradation and of mineralization rates. A more intense mineralization was observed in samples of the wastewater treatment plant when applying a long incubation period (40 days). More precisely, 76% and 37% of the initial radioactivity applied as 14C-OC was recovered as 14CO2 from samples of the biological tank and effluent water, respectively. Two bacterial strains growing on OC as sole carbon source were isolated and used for its removal from synthetic medium and environmental samples, including surface water and wastewater. Inoculation of water and wastewater samples with the two OC-degrading strains showed that mineralization of OC was significantly higher in both inoculated water and wastewater, than in uninoculated controls. Denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis and quantitative PCR analysis showed that OC would not affect the microbial population of surface water and wastewater. The capacity of the ligninolytic fungus Phanerochaete chrysosporium to degrade a wide variety of environmentally persistent xenobiotics has been largely reported in literature. In a series of laboratory experiments, the efficiency of a formulation using P. chrysosporium was evaluated for the removal of selected pharmaceuticals from wastewater samples. Addition of the fungus to samples of the wastewater treatment plant of Bologna significantly increased (P < 0.05) the removal of OC and three antibiotics, erythromycin, sulfamethoxazole, and ciprofloxacin. Similar effects were also observed in effluent water. OC was the most persistent of the four pharmaceuticals. After 30 days of incubation, approximately two times more OC was removed in bioremediated samples than in controls. The highest removal efficiency of the formulation was observed with the antibiotic ciprofloxacin. The studies included environmental aspects of soil contamination with two emerging veterinary contaminants, such as doramectin and oxibendazole, wich are common parasitic treatments in cattle farms.

The impact of swine welfare on some qualitative traits of meat and long cured animal derived products

The present dissertation collects the results of three different research trials which have the common aim to understand the effects of swine welfare (both at farm level and during transport) on the main fresh and dry-cured meat characteristics. The first trial was carried out in order to compare the effects of illumination regimes differing in light duration or light intensity on meat and ham quality of Italian heavy pigs. The results of this trial support the conclusion that, within a moderate range of light intensity and given an appropriate dark period for animal rest, an increase of light duration or intensity above the minimum mandatory levels has no negative impact on carcass composition, meat or long-cured hams quality. The second trial was designed with the aim to investigate the effects of water restriction on growth traits, animal welfare and meat and ham quality of liquid-fed heavy pigs. Overall, the parameters analyzed as concerns growth rate, behavioural traits, blood, as well as carcass, fresh meat and cured hams quality were not affected by the absence of fresh drinking water. However, since liquid feeding did not suppress drinker use or drinker manipulation in the experimental groups, water restriction does not appear to be an applicable method to obtain a reduction of water waste. The third trial, which was carried out in Canada, tested the effectiveness of water sprinkling market-weight pigs (115±10Kg BW) before and after transport in reducing the heat stress experienced under commercial transport conditions. Our results show that the water sprinkling protocol proposed may reduce heat stress during transport and improve pork quality, particularly in specific trailer compartments. This body of research supports the general conclusion that swine welfare could be improved in different scenarios through simple and cost-effective means, without negatively affecting the quality of the main animal-derived products.

The impact of cardiac rehabilitation on lifestyles, psychological correlates and the clinical course of cardiac disease

Objectives: The aim of this research was to evaluate the impact of Cardiac Rehabilitation (CR) on risky lifestyles, quality of life, psychopathology, psychological distress and well-being, considering the potential moderating role of depression, anxiety and psychosomatic syndromes on lifestyles modification. The influence of CR on cardiac morbidity and mortality was also evaluated. Methods: The experimental group (N=108), undergoing CR, was compared to a control group (N=85) of patients affected by cardiovascular diseases, not undergoing CR, at baseline and at 1-month, 6- and 12-months follow-ups. The assessment included: the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV, the structured interview based on Diagnostic Criteria for Psychosomatic Research (DCPR), GOSPEL questionnaire on lifestyles, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, Morisky Medication Adherence Scale, MOS 36-Item Short Form Health Survey, Symptom Questionnaire, Psychological Well-Being Scale and 14-items Type D Scale. Results: Compared to the control group, CR was associated to: maintenance of the level of physical activity, improvement of correct dietary behaviors and stress management, enhancement of quality of life and sleep; reduction of the most frequently observed psychiatric diagnoses and psychosomatic syndromes at baseline. On the contrary, CR was not found to be associated with: healthy dietary habits, weight loss and improvement on medications adherence. In addition, there were no relevant effects on sub-clinical psychological distress and well-being, except for personal growth and purpose in life (PWB). Also, CR did not seem to play a protective role against cardiac recurrences. The presence of psychosomatic syndromes and depressive disorders was a mediating factor on the modification of specific lifestyles. Conclusions: The findings highlight the need of a psychosomatic assessment and an evaluation of psychological sub-clinical symptomatology in cardiac rehabilitation, in order to identify and address specific factors potentially associated with the clinical course of the heart disease.

The impact of intraclonal heterogeneity on the outcomes of Multiple Myeloma patients treated with new drugs

Understanding the biology of Multiple Myeloma (MM) is of primary importance in the struggle to achieve a cure for this yet incurable neoplasm. A better knowledge of the mechanism underlying the development of MM can guide us in the development of new treatment strategies. Studies both on solid and haematological tumours have shown that cancer comprises a collection of related but subtly different clones, a feature that has been termed “intra-clonal heterogeneity”. This intra-clonal heterogeneity is likely, from a “Darwinian” natural selection perspective, to be the essential substrate for cancer evolution, disease progression and relapse. In this context the critical mechanism for tumour progression is competition between individual clones (and cancer stem cells) for the same microenvironmental “niche”, combined with the process of adaptation and natural selection. The Darwinian behavioural characteristics of cancer stem cells are applicable to MM. The knowledge that intra-clonal heterogeneity is an important feature of tumours’ biology has changed our way to addressing cancer, now considered as a composite mixture of clones and not as a linear evolving disease. In this variable therapeutic landscape it is important for clinicians and researchers to consider the impact that evolutionary biology and intra-clonal heterogeneity have on the treatment of myeloma and the emergence of treatment resistance. It is clear that if we want to effectively cure myeloma it is of primarily importance to understand disease biology and evolution. Only by doing so will we be able to effectively use all of the new tools we have at our disposal to cure myeloma and to use treatment in the most effective way possible. The aim of the present research project was to investigate at different levels the presence of intra-clonal heterogeneity in MM patients, and to evaluate the impact of treatment on clonal evolution and on patients’ outcomes.