Cecilia Balestra

The NEREA (Naples Ecological REsearch for Augmented observatories) initiative aims to establish an augmented observatory in the Gulf of Naples (GoN), designed to advance the understanding of marine ecosystems through a holistic approach. Inspired by the Tara Oceans expedition and building on the scientific legacy of the MareChiara Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER-MC) site, NEREA integrates traditional physical, chemical, and biological measurements with state-of-the-art methodologies such as metabarcoding and metagenomics. Here we present the first 10 months of NEREA data, collected from April 2019 to January 2020, encompassing physico-chemical parameters, plankton biodiversity (e.g., microscopy and flow cytometry), prokaryotic and eukaryotic metabarcoding, a prokaryotic gene catalogue, and a collection of 3818 prokaryotic Metagenome-Assembled Genomes (MAGs). NEREA’s efforts produce a significant volume of multifaceted data, which enhances our understanding of marine ecosystems and promotes the development of scientific hypotheses and ideas.

The treatment of inflammatory and immune-related diseases due to dysfunctioning of the immune system necessitates modulation of the immune response through immunomodulatory compounds. Marine environments are considered as a new frontier for health benefit product implementations. Marine biodiversity is still a low explored resource, despite it is expected to represent an important platform for chemical bioactive compounds. Within the phylum Mollusca, gastropods are known to synthetize mucus, the latter presenting relevant bioactive properties, e.g., related to immunomodulant molecules able to activate the innate and acquired immune system. This study proposes a bioprospecting of the immunomodulant activity of mucus isolated from seven common gastropod species from the Gulf of Naples (Mediterranean Sea). Results showed that not all mucus displayed a significant cytotoxic activity on the two human cancer cell lines A549 and A2058. On the other hand, the mucus from Bolinus brandaris was strongly bioactive and was therefore thoroughly investigated at cellular, molecular, and protein levels on the human monocytes U937 line. It can conclusively induce monocyte differentiation in vitro and significantly stimulate natural immunity response.

Estuarine processes play a key role in determining the amount and quality of land-derived dissolved organic matter (DOM) reaching the oceans. Microbial-mediated reactions can affect the concentration, quality, and bioavailability of DOM within an estuary. In this study, we investigated biological DOM removal in a small estuary and its variability in two contrasting seasons (spring and autumn) characterized by natural differences in the concentration and quality of the riverine DOM. Two incubation experiments were carried out using natural DOM and heterotrophic prokaryotes community collected at the estuary in March and September. Dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentration, DOM fluorescence, and the heterotrophic prokaryotes abundance (HPA) showed marked differences between the two seasons. These parameters were followed through time for up to two months. Despite the marked differences in the initial conditions, the DOC removal rates were surprisingly similar in the two periods (16 µM DOC month⁻¹ in March and 18 µM DOC month⁻¹ in September), with the biggest removal in the first 48 h. The trend of fluorescent DOM (FDOM) during the incubation showed marked differences between the two periods. In March, the net removal of all the FDOM components was observed consistently with the decrease in DOC; whereas, in September, the net production of humic-like substances was observed.