About the Authors

Grazyna E. Ptak

gptak@unite.it

Affiliations Department of Comparative Biomedical Sciences, University of Teramo, Teramo, Italy, Department of Experimental Embryology, Institute of Genetics and Animal Breeding of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Jastrzebiec, Poland

Emanuela Tacconi

Affiliation Department of Comparative Biomedical Sciences, University of Teramo, Teramo, Italy

Marta Czernik

Affiliation Department of Comparative Biomedical Sciences, University of Teramo, Teramo, Italy

Paola Toschi

Affiliation Department of Comparative Biomedical Sciences, University of Teramo, Teramo, Italy

Jacek A. Modlinski

Affiliation Department of Experimental Embryology, Institute of Genetics and Animal Breeding of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Jastrzebiec, Poland

Pasqualino Loi

Affiliation Department of Comparative Biomedical Sciences, University of Teramo, Teramo, Italy

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: GEP PL JAM. Performed the experiments: GEP ET MC PT. Analyzed the data: PT. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: GEP PL JAM. Wrote the paper: GEP.