Wild grapevine: silvestris, hybrids or cultivars that escaped from vineyards? Molecular evidence in Sardinia.

Vitis vinifera ssp. silvestris, the spontaneous subspecies of V. vinifera L., is believed to be the ancestor of present grapevine cultivars. In this work, polymorphism at 13 SSR loci was investigated to answer the following key question: are wild plants (i) true silvestris, (ii) hybrids between wild and cultivated plants or (iii) or 'escapes' from vineyards? In particular, the objective of the present study was to identify truly wild individuals and to search for possible hybridization events. The study was performed in Sardinia, the second largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, which is characterized by a large and well-described number of both grape cultivars and wild populations. This region was ideal for the study because of its spatial isolation and, consequently, limited contamination from outside material. The results of this study show that domesticated and wild grapevine germplasms are genetically divergent and thus are real silvestris. Pure lineages (both domesticated and wild) show very high average posterior probabilities of assignment to their own clusters, with a low level of introgression.

Mothers' active and passive smoking during pregnancy and risk of brain tumours in children.

As part of a collaborative study of risk factors for childhood brain tumours, the effects of the mother's smoking and her potential for passive smoking exposure during the pregnancy were assessed in a case-control study. Parents of 91 cases and 321 population controls from Northern Italy, matched for age, sex and residence, were interviewed about their lifetime smoking habits. Mother's smoking during pregnancy was associated with an odds ratio (OR) of 1.7 (95% CI 0.8, 3.8) of brain tumour in her child although this was not statistically significant. Among non-smoking mothers, the risk for light and heavy exposure to passive smoking was 1.7 (0.8, 3.6) and 2.2 (1.1, 4.5) respectively, and a statistically significant dose-response relationship was found (p trend = 0.02). These results must be interpreted within the constraints of the relatively small sample size and the likely misclassification produced by the difference between the potential for exposure to passive smoke and the true exposure. However, they add another piece of information to the growing body of evidence available about the health consequences both of active and of passive smoking and highlight the need for more information about this putative association.

Parental occupation, occupational exposure to solvents and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and risk of childhood brain tumors (Italy, France, Spain)

The role of parental occupational exposure in childhood brain tumors was investigated in a population-based case-control study grouping 251 cases and 601 controls from three European centers: Milan (Italy), Paris (France), and Valencia (Spain). Parental occupational exposure to solvents and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) during the five-year period before birth was estimated using a job-exposure matrix developed earlier in the same countries. Odds ratios (OR) of brain tumors for each occupation and occupational exposure were estimated by logistic regression, adjusting for child's age, gender, exposure to tobacco smoke and ionizing radiation, mother's age and years of schooling, and center. The risk of childhood brain tumors rose when fathers worked in agriculture (OR = 2.2, 95 percent confidence interval [CI] = 1.0-4.7) and motor-vehicle-related occupations. In the latter group, the risk increased for primitive neuroectodermal tumors in particular (OR = 2.7, CI = 1.1-6.6). Astroglial tumors were more frequent among children of mothers in health services (OR = 2.2, CI = 1.0-4.9). Paternal exposure to PAHs was associated with an increased, but not dose-related, risk of primitive neuroectodermal tumors (OR = 2.0, CI = 1.0-4.0), and maternal exposure to solvents at a high level was associated with an increased risk of both astroglial (OR = 2.3, CI = 0.9-5.8) and primitive neuroectodermal tumors (OR = 3.2, CI = 1.0-10.3).

No evidence of a higher risk of progression to AIDS in patients with HIV-1-related severe thrombocytopenia.

The prognostic role of platelet (PLT) counts was evaluated in a cohort of 1,533 HIV-1-infected subjects followed for a median of 21 months. Thrombocytopenia (TCP), defined as a PLT count < or = 100 x 10(9)/L was present at enrollment in 11.2% of cases, with counts < or = 50 x 10(9)/L (severe TCP) in 5.3%. With the subjects with normal PLT counts (PLT >150 x 10(9)/L) as the reference group, the relative risk of developing acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) was 0.8 [95% confidence interval (CI) 0.5-1.3, p = 0.4] for subjects with severe TCP, 2.1 (95% CI 1.4-3.1, p = 0.002) for those with PLT counts ranging from 51 to 100 x 10(9)/L (moderate TCP), and 1.6 (95% CI 1.2-2.1, p = 0.0004) for those with borderline PLT values (PLT ranging from 101 to 150 x 10(9)/L). Most of the risk increase associated with moderate TCP and borderline PLT values was explained by a higher prevalence of subjects with an older age and lower CD4+ cell counts. However, at multivariable analysis considering age, sex, risk group, and zidovudine (ZDV) treatment, the risk for subjects with severe TCP remained significantly lower than that for subjects with moderate TCP and borderline values. These results suggest the existence of different types of HIV-1-associated TCP and also suggest that severe TCP (which often arises in the early phases of infection) is not related to disease progression.