About the Authors
- Anna Rita Zuena
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Contributed equally to this work with: Anna Rita Zuena, Chiara Giuli
Affiliation Department of Physiology and Pharmacology “Vittorio Erspamer”, I Faculty of Medicine, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy
- Chiara Giuli
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Contributed equally to this work with: Anna Rita Zuena, Chiara Giuli
Affiliation Department of Physiology and Pharmacology “Vittorio Erspamer”, I Faculty of Medicine, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy
- Aldina Venerosi Pesciolini
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Affiliation Section of Neurotoxicology & Neuroendocrinology, Department of Cell Biology and Neurosciences, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Rome, Italy
- Antonella Tramutola
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Affiliation Department of Physiology and Pharmacology “Vittorio Erspamer”, I Faculty of Medicine, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy
- Maria Antonietta Ajmone-Cat
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Affiliation Section of Neurotoxicology & Neuroendocrinology, Department of Cell Biology and Neurosciences, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Rome, Italy
- Carlo Cinque
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Affiliation Department of Physiology and Pharmacology “Vittorio Erspamer”, I Faculty of Medicine, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy
- Giovanni Sebastiano Alemà
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Affiliation Department of Physiology and Pharmacology “Vittorio Erspamer”, I Faculty of Medicine, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy
- Angela Giovine
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Affiliation Department of Physiology and Pharmacology “Vittorio Erspamer”, I Faculty of Medicine, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy
- Gianfranco Peluso
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Affiliation Institute of Biochemistry of Proteins, CNR, Naples, Italy
- Luisa Minghetti
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Affiliation Section of Experimental Neurology, Department of Cell Biology and Neurosciences, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Rome, Italy
- Raffaella Nicolai
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Affiliation Therapeutic Area Life Cycle Management, Corporate R&D Sigma-Tau S.p.A., Pomezia, Rome, Italy
- Gemma Calamandrei
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* E-mail: gemma.calamandrei@iss.it
Affiliation Section of Neurotoxicology & Neuroendocrinology, Department of Cell Biology and Neurosciences, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Rome, Italy
- Paola Casolini
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Affiliation Department of Physiology and Pharmacology “Vittorio Erspamer”, I Faculty of Medicine, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy
Competing Interests
Doctor Raffaella Nicolai is employed at Sigma-tau S.p.A. as Medical Research Senior Advisor; Raffaella Nicolai and Paola Casolini have been designated among inventors in the following European patent application: 11137170.3-2112 “Compound useful for preventing cognitive deficit disorders in a new born from HIV-seropositive pregnant female who is on treatment with azidothymidine”. Part of this study has been financially supported by Sigma Tau-IFR S.p.A., Italy that has synthesized and provided L-acetylcarnitine. Sigma-tau is an Italian pharmaceutical company involved in research on carnitine system which produces and sells carnitine as drugs. This does not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials. There are no other competing interests to declare.
Author Contributions
Conceived and designed the experiments: GC PC AVP. Performed the experiments: ARZ CG AVP AT MAAC CC AG GP. Analyzed the data: ARZ CG AVP GSA LM RN GC PC. Wrote the paper: GC PC LM RN.