We describe the Miocene petroleum system in the context of the geology of the Northern Apennines as a system fed by multiple sources including some potential for deep oil accumulation. The presence ...of sources deeper than the Miocene reservoir is required by the high thermal maturity of the oils, the thermogenic nature of methane and the high ion content, in the reservoir brines, deriving from decaying organic matter. This is in contrast with the lower thermal maturity measured in the Miocene reservoir coupled with its low organic matter content. A Miocene secondary source, however, is required by the presence of a Tertiary organic marker in the oil. The deeper sources charged reservoirs of different age, geometry and sediment provenance, mostly as a function of stepwise migration of the foredeep and the overlying Ligurian units toward the foreland, which provided rapid overburden. The porosity of the reservoir was preserved in the anticlines mostly because of up-dip migration into early formed structures in the foredeep units. Therefore, the structural evolution of the area, especially the time interval between deposition and deformation of the foredeep units, is crucial for the definition of the quality of the reservoirs. Finally, the Quaternary reactivation of the thrust sheets in the foothills changed the geometry of the reservoirs, inducing new accumulations and/or dismigration from deeper and older traps.
Prosaposin, a 66 kDa glycoprotein, was identified initially as the precursor of the sphingolipid activator proteins, saposins A-D, which are required for the enzymatic hydrolysis of certain ...sphingolipids by lysosomal hydrolases. While mature saposins are distributed to lysosomes, prosaposin exists in secretory body fluids and plasma membranes. In addition to its role as the precursor, prosaposin shows a variety of neurotrophic and myelinotrophic activities through a receptor-mediated mechanism. In studies in vivo, prosaposin was demonstrated to exert a variety of neuro-efficacies capable of preventing neuro-degeneration following neuro-injury and promoting the amelioration of allodynia and hyperalgesia in pain models. Collective findings indicate that prosaposin is not a simple house-keeping precursor protein; instead, it is a protein essentially required for the development and maintenance of the central and peripheral nervous systems. Accumulating evidence over the last decade has attracted interests in exploring and developing new therapeutic approaches using prosaposin for human disorders associated with neuro-degeneration. In this review we detail the structure characteristics, cell biological feature, in vivo efficacy, and neuro-therapeutic potential of prosaposin, thereby providing future prospective in clinical application of this multifunctional protein.
