No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

Metabarcoding is a promising DNA-based method for identifying airborne pollen from environmental samples with advantages over microscopic methods. This method requires several preparatory steps of the samples, with the extraction protocol being of fundamental importance to obtain an optimal DNA yield. Currently, there is no consensus in sample preparation and DNA extraction, especially for gravimetric pollen samplers. Therefore, the aim of this study was to develop protocols to process environmental samples for pollen DNA extraction and further metabarcoding analysis, and to assess the efficacy of these protocols for the taxonomic assignment of airborne pollen, collected by gravimetric (Tauber trap) and volumetric samplers (Burkard spore trap). Protocols were tested across an increasing complexity of samples, from single-species pure pollen to environmental samples. A short fragment (about 150 base pair) of chloroplast DNA was amplified by universal primers for plants (trnL). After PCR amplification, amplicons were Sanger-sequenced and taxonomic assignment was accomplished by comparison to a custom-made reference database including chloroplast DNA sequences of 46 plant families, including most of the anemophilous taxa occurring in the study area (Trentino, Italy, Eastern Italian Alps). Using as a benchmark the classical morphological pollen analysis, it emerged that DNA metabarcoding is applicable efficiently across a complexity of samples, provided that sample preparation, DNA extraction and amplification protocols are specifically optimized.

No abstract

No abstract

Bonzanini M., Gilioli E., Brancato B., Cristofori A., Bricolo D., Natale N., Valentini A., and Dalla Palma P. (2001)Cytopathology 12, 107-119. The cytopathology of ductal carcinoma in situ of the breast. A detailed analysis of fine needle aspiration cytology of 58 cases compared with 101 invasive ductal carcinomas. The existence of cytological findings that discriminate ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) of the breast from invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC) has not been unanimously accepted and the role of fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) remains controversial. We report the cytological findings of a large series of FNAC from histologically proven DCIS compared with those of ductal carcinomas having a different extent of the invasive component. The association of high cohesiveness of atypical cells and absence of tubular aggregates showed good sensitivity (SE) and specificity (SP) for the diagnosis of DCIS vs IDC. The simultaneous presence of necrotic background, atypical cells with abundant eosinophilic cytoplasm and a low percentage of single malignant cells resulted in low sensitivity but high specificity and positive predictive value (PPV) for differential cytological diagnosis of DCIS vs IDC.

No abstract