78819 - Environmental Botany

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course, students will acquire knowledge to analyze and to discuss issues concerning plant molecules important as food and health, their relevance as nutraceutical and as critical component for food safeness as well as on the evolutive plant strategies to survive at different environmental conditions. Moreover, students will acquire knowledge on: 1. the importance of plants to monitor the environmental quality and to influence it by releasing biological particles as pollens; 2. the use of plants as tools for bioremediation.

Course contents

To deepen some aspect of plant citology, with particular attention to vacuole, its contents in different plant species and to cell walls. Secondary metabolites. Terpenoids, alkaloids, phenylpropanoids and glycosides. Roles of these molecules for plants and their importance for humans. Nutraceutic. Plant molecules with anti cancer effect. How to evaluate antioxidant properties of plant foods. Plant tissues that accumulate strage. Storage proteins: albumin, globulin and prolammin and their importance as food. The gluten. Plant strategies to survive at different environmental conditions. Food allergens derived from plants and respiratory allergens derived from pollens. Main allergens aerodisperse: pollen and spores. Pollen and fertilization. The self-incompatibility, an evolutive mechanism useful to preserve biodiversity: the different way of self-incompatibility in the different plant families. Aerobiology. How to recognize the main allergenic pollens at microscope. Plant that cause allergies. Plants for bioremediation.

Readings/Bibliography

Papers on Italian and international journals

Teaching methods

Oral presentations

Assessment methods

Test with 5 questions; each question has 4 replies among which students will select the right one/s; then an oral question on the programme

Teaching tools

Lectures in power points

Office hours

See the website of Stefano Del Duca