Category Archives: Molecular Organism

Brischigliaro M, Corrà S, Tregnago C, Fernandez-Vizarra E, Zeviani M, Costa R, De Pittà C Frontiers in Physiology Cytochrome c oxidase (COX) deficiency is the biochemical hallmark of several mitochondrial disorders, including subjects affected by mutations in apoptogenic-1 (APOPT1), recently renamed as COA8 (HGNC:20492). Loss-of-function mutations are responsible for a specific infantile or childhood-onset mitochondrial leukoencephalopathy with a chronic clinical course. […]

Nagy D, Cusumano P, Andreatta G, Anduaga AM, Hermann-Luibl C, Reinhard N, Gesto J, Wegener C, Mazzotta G, Rosato E, Kyriacou CP, Helfrich-Förster C, Costa R. PLoS Genetics With the approach of winter, many insects switch to an alternative protective developmental program called diapause. Drosophila melanogaster females overwinter as adults by inducing a reproductive arrest that is […]

Paola Cusumano, Milena Damulewicz, Elena Carbognin, Laura Caccin, Antonietta Puricella, Valeria Specchia, Maria Pia Bozzetti, Rodolfo Costa, Gabriella M. Mazzotta Frontiers in Physiology Circadian clocks control and synchronize biological rhythms of several behavioral and physiological phenomena in most, if not all, organisms. Rhythm generation relies on molecular auto-regulatory oscillations of interlocked transcriptional-translational feedback loops. Rhythmic clock-gene […]

Damulewicz M, Mazzotta GM, Sartori E, Rosato E, Costa R, Pyza EM Frontiers in Molecular Neuroscience, 2017 Drosophila CRYPTOCHROME (CRY) is a blue light sensitive protein with a key role in circadian photoreception. A main feature of CRY is that light promotes an interaction with the circadian protein TIMELESS (TIM) resulting in their ubiquitination and degradation, a […]

Mazzotta GM, Bellanda M, Minervini G, Damulewicz M, Cusumano P, Aufiero S, Stefani M, Zambelli B, Mammi S, Costa R, Tosatto SCE. Frontiers in Molecular Neuroscience, 2018 Light is the main environmental stimulus that synchronizes the endogenous timekeeping systems in most terrestrial organisms. Drosophila cryptochrome (dCRY) is a light-responsive flavoprotein that detects changes in light […]

Cusumano P, Biscontin A, Sandrelli F, Mazzotta GM, Tregnago C, De Pittà C, Costa R. Plos Genetics Single microRNAs are usually associated with hundreds of putative target genes that can influence multiple phenotypic traits in Drosophila, ranging from development to behaviour. We investigated the function of Drosophila miR-210 in circadian behaviour by misexpressing it within […]

Schlichting M, Rieger D, Cusumano P, Grebler R, Costa R, Mazzotta GM, Helfrich-Förster C. Frontiers in Molecular Neuroscience Cryptochromes (CRYs) are a class of flavoproteins that sense blue light. In animals, CRYs are expressed in the eyes and in the clock neurons that control sleep/wake cycles and are implied in the generation and/or entrainment of […]

Nagy D.,  Andreatta G., Bastianello S., Martín Anduaga A., Mazzotta G., Kyriacou CP., Costa R. Journal of Biological Rhythms The fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster survives thermally stressful conditions in a state of reproductive dormancy (diapause), manifested by reduced metabolic activity and arrested ovarian development in females. Unlike insects that rely primarily on photoperiodic stimuli to initiate […]

Andreatta G, Kyriacou CP, Flatt T, Costa R Scientific Reports 2018 In response to adverse environmental conditions many organisms from nematodes to mammals deploy a dormancy strategy, causing states of developmental or reproductive arrest that enhance somatic maintenance and survival ability at the expense of growth or reproduction. Dormancy regulation has been studied in C. […]

Anduaga AM, Nagy D, Costa R, Kyriacou CP. Journal of Insect Physiology  2018 Unlike many insects where photoperiod per se induces diapause, reproductive arrest in Drosophila melanogaster adult females is observed at colder temperatures and can be enhanced by shorter photoperiods. Traditional experimental protocols raise flies at 25°C from the larval stage and then the adults are placed at […]