Pierangelo Luporini

Pierangelo Luporini graduated in Biological Sciences at the University of Pisa in 1964, where he was assistant professor for ten years before moving to the University of Camerino as full professor in zoology, teaching invertebrate biodiversity and phylogeny. He served as editor-in-chief of the publications of the Unione Zoologica Italiana (including the Italian Journal of Zoology, now European Zoological Journal from Taylor & Francis, and zoological monographs from Mucchi Editore), and as coordinator of the Biology & Medicine scientific committee of the Programma Nazionale di Ricerche in Antartide (PNRA). He was visitor at the Institute of Animal Genetics at the University of Edinburgh, and Institute of Genetics at the Justus-Liebig University of Giessen. He is honorary member of the International Society of Protistologists, Unione Zoologica Italiana, and Società Italiana di Immunobiologia Comparata, member of the editorial boards of the European Journal of Protistology and Journal of Eukaryotic Microbiology, and associate editor of Biology.
Ciliate sexual phenomena (conjugation and autogamy), the genetics of mating-type systems presiding the mating partner choice, and taxonomy of gastrotrichs were the first major research interest. This interest has later been mainly directed to the molecular structures and activity of water-borne protein signalling pheromones that are constitutively released into the environment from various species of Euplotes (one of the evolutionarily and ecologically most successful ciliates). A long-term collaboration with Prof. K. Wüthrich (2002, Nobel Prize in Chemistry) was decisive to solve the NMR solution molecular structures of various pheromones (including some psychrophilic ones from Antarctic and Arctic species), and get insights into their relationships with signal molecules from more modern organisms. A parallel collaboration with Prof. R. A. Bradshaw (a leader student of mammalian growth factor biology) was decisive to reveal the ancestry of an autocrine, cell-growth promoting pheromone activity to a paracrine, sex-mating induction activity (after Nature back cover (1995), “The ciliate protozoan Euplotes raikovi produces diffusible polypeptide pheromones capable of inducing cell mating. But an additional activity for these pheromones has now been identified: these molecules also promote the vegetative reproduction of the same cells from which they originate. This dual function raises interesting possibilities for the evolution of cell signalling molecules in eukaryotes and shows how the original function of a molecule can be obscured during evolution by the acquisition of a new one. Page 522.”) Exploring the mating compatibility and breeding structure of Antarctic and Arctic Euplotes populations, evidence was reported (after PNAS, 2011, back cover) that “these populations of E. nobilii are actually one interbreeding species—they share the same gene pool even though they are found at opposite ends of the globe. The authors suggest that for this gene flow to occur, the ciliates must “tunnel” in cold deep-sea currents to travel from pole to pole.”

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"The major driving force of Darwinian evolution relies on Sex as the basic, universal mechanism for reshuffling the gene pool of natural populations. “But, [quoting from the very provocative L. Margulis & D. Sagan book “Origin of Sex” (1986)] from a scientific perspective, the word is all too often associated with reproduction, with sexual intercourse leading to childbirth. As we look at the evolutionary history of life, however, we see that …. a great many organisms offered and exchanged genes sexually without the sex ever leading to the cell or organism copying known as reproduction. Although additional living beings are often reproduced by contribution of genes from more than a single parent, sex in most organisms is still divorced from growth and reproduction which are accomplished by nonsexual means. …. Biologists, although they have tried, have not been able to prove that sexual organisms have an intrinsic advantage over asexual ones. Many have struggled with the question of how sexual organisms can afford to expend the biological “cost” of mating in every generation. Asexual organisms, since they can have more offspring per unit time, are, in Darwinian sense, more ”fit”.”"

(L. Margulis & D. Sagan “Origin of Sex” (1986))

Selected Publications

Luporini, P., & Miceli, C. (1986). Mating pheromones. In: “Molecular Biology of Ciliated Protozoa”. (J. G. Gall, Ed.), Academic Press, New York, pp. 263-299.

Raffioni, S., Luporini, P., Chait, B.T., Disper, S.S., & Bradshaw, R.A. (1988). Primary structure of the mating pheromone Er -1 of the ciliate Euplotes raikovi. J. Biol. Chem. 263, 18152-18159.

Ortenzi, C., Miceli, C., Bradshaw, R.A., & Luporini, P. (1990). Identification and initial characterization of an autocrine pheromone receptor in the protozoon ciliate Euplotcs raikovi. J. Cell Biol., 111, 607-614.

Raffioni, S., Miceli, C., Vallesi, A., Chaudlhary, T., Chait, B., Luporini, P., & Bradshaw, R.A. (1992). The primary structure of Euplotes raikovi pheromones: A comparison of five sequences of pheromones from cells with variable mating interactions. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 89, 3020-3025.

Brown, L.R., Mronga, S., Bradshaw, R.A., Ortenzi, C., Luporini, P., & Wüthrich, K. (1993). Nuclear magnetic resonance solution structure of the pheromone Er-10 from the ciliated protozoan Euplotes raikovi. J. Mol. Biol., 231, 800-816.

Luporini, P., Vallesi, A., Miceli, C., & Bradshaw, R.A. (1995). Chemical signaling in ciliates. J. Euk. Microbiol., 42, 208-212.

Vallesi, A., Giuli, G., Bradshaw, R.A., & Luporini, P. (1995). Autocrine mitogenic activity of pheromones produced by the protozoan ciliate Euplotes raikovi. Nature, 376, 522-524.

Alimenti, C., Vallesi, A., Pedrini, B., Wüthrich, K., & Luporini, P. (2009). Molecular cold-adaptation: comparative analysis of two homologous families of psychrophilic and mesophilic signal proteins of the protozoan ciliate, Euplotes. IUBMB Life, 61, 838-845.

Di Giuseppe, G., Erra, F., Dini, F., Alimenti, C., Vallesi, A., Pedrini, B., Wüthrich, K., & Luporini, P. (2011). Antarctic and Arctic populations of the ciliate Euplotes nobilii show common pheromone-mediated cell-cell signaling and cross-mating. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 108, 3181-3186.

Luporini, P., Alimenti, C., Pedrini, B., Vallesi, A., (2016). Ciliate communication via water-borne pheromones. In: Biocommunication in Ciliates (Witzany, G. & Nowacki, M., Eds.) Springer, pp. 159-172.

Emeritus Professor in Zoology; University of Camerino

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Publications

Selected Publications

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