II scientific meeting of the Italian Ascidiologists, 30 June – 1 July 2008, Department of


ISJ 6: S1-S2, 2009                 ISSN 1824-307X 
 
 

EDITORIAL 
 
II° Scientific meeting of the Italian Ascidiologists: dedicated to Professor Giuseppe 
Reverberi 
 
N Parrinello 
 
Department of Animal Biology, University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy 
 
 

Accepted March 13, 2009 
 
Periodically the Italian ascidiologists are 

engaged in a meeting on Ascidian Biology. The 
2008 meeting has been dedicated to the memory of 
Prof Giuseppe Reverberi who, in the second half of 
the past century, was devoted to study of ascidian 
developmental biology. He held (1948-1971) the 
chair of Zoology at the University of Palermo (Italy) 
where, with valid collaborators, started and 
strengthened the main scientific route leading to 
significant improvements, internationally 
appreciated, in embryology with an experimental 
approach. He dedicated his life to research and was 
a Master for numerous scholar generations who 
attained the frame of the scientific method and 
achieved keenness for research in animal biology. A 
lot of scholars and scientists, inside and outside his 
schooling place, appreciated his rigor in research 
and the valuable teaching method that also 
improved their human and scientific personality. 
Prof F De Bernardi (University of Milan, Italy), 
ascidian embryologist, validly retraced the Reverberi 
scientific activity that still nowadays is a milestone in 
ascidian development study.  

The meeting broadened diverse fields of 
ascidian biology and appreciated lectures and oral 
communications have been presented. Due to their 
phylogenetic key position, ascidians have attained 
importance for evolutionary studies. The genome of 
some solitary species (Ciona intestinalis, Ciona 
savignyi, Halocynthia roretzi) has been fully or 
partially sequenced, analyzed and annotated and 
can be validated by gene expression patterns for 
several specific biological properties and activities. 

The first session was rich in reports on 
development and morphogenesis including 
differentiation of adult sensory organs and larval 
papillae, developmental expression and gene 
organization of synapses, distribution of larval 
neural phenotypes, meiotic progression and 
fertilization, musculature differentiation and gene 
expression, evolution of anterior Hox regulatory 
elements, larval metamorphic and juvenile phases, 
role of nitric oxide 
___________________________________________________________________________ 
 

Corresponding author: 
Nicolò Parrinello 
Department of Animal Biology 
University of Palermo 
Via Archirafi 18, 90123 Palermo, Italy 
E-mail: nicpar@unipa.it

during the development, pigment organ formation 
during the embryogenesis, angiogenetic mechanism 
in the colonial circulatory system, and the effects of 
a xenobiotic on development and metamorphosis. 

The next session on phylogeny and 
microevolution concerned the homologies between 
chordate invertebrates and vertebrates as revealed 
by the neurophysiology of swimming tadpoles, the 
fast evolutionary dynamics of mitochondrial genome 
including new data and forward genetic that unveil 
and characterize two Ciona cryptic species, and the 
phylogenetic conservation of CSF-related genes. 
Since this ascidian is a cosmopolitan representative 
model, cryptic species identification is of great 
relevance for research and comparative analysis of 
results involving several laboratories. 

At the second day, after a plenary lecture on 
stem cells and chimerism in colonial ascidians (A 
Voskoboynik, Stanford University, USA), the 
lectures were mainly devoted to immunity and 
inflammatory response. Bioinformatic results, 
disclosed EST and extensive in silico searches have 
concerned immunorelevant molecules, gene 
expression patterns and some specific immune 
characteristics. Phenoloxidases, variable domain-
containing chitin-binding proteins (VCBPs) genes 
and their expression, anaphylotoxin and specific 
receptors, immunomodulatory factors, hemocyte 
cytotoxic activity, collectin and cytokine-like cloning 
and genes expression, hemocytes provided with 
acetylcholinesterasis, were the topics of the reports. 
Finally, some communications concerned with 
environmental stressors effects on embryos and 
hemocytes. 

Several Italian research groups, that esteemed 
the Prof Reverberi research, attended the meeting. 
Besides the ascidiologists from the University of 
Palermo who organized the event, scientists from 
the Universities of Padua, Genoa, Milan, Bari, from 
the Stazione Zoologica “Anton Dohrn” of Naples, 
and from Palermo CNR, contributed in the success 
of the scientific happening. In particular, we were 
honoured for the interest and presence of the Prof. 
Armando Sabbadin emeritus at the Padua 
University and a founder of the research field on 
colonial ascidian allorecogniton. Moreover Prof E 
Ottaviani, President in charge of the Italian 
Association of Developmental and Comparative 
Immunology and Editor in Chief of the open access 

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journal “Invertebrate Survival Journal”, was an 
appreciated guest. 

The abstracts of the scientific contributions 
have been published in Inv. Surv. J. 5: 83-96, 
2008.  
 
Acknowledgements  

We are grateful to Prof G Silvestri Rector of  

the University of Palermo, and to the 
Department of Animal Biology of the University of 
Palermo for their helpful support and sponsorship. 

Thanks are due to Prof E Ottaviani, Editor in 
Chief, for his contribution in publishing the Inv. 
Surv. J. special issue. 

MIUR-PRIN Cofin 2006-2008 grant to N 
Parrinello also contributed to the meeting success. 

 
 

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