Search results for "Plant science"
showing 10 items of 3375 documents
Values and challenges in the assessment of coprophilous fungi according to the IUCN Red List criteria: the case study of Poronia punctata (Xylariales…
2020
Coprophilous fungi are specialized microorganisms, playing key roles in ecosystems and in several other contexts, whose protection requires more substantial efforts. This paper aims to highlight and discuss valuable and critical aspects faced during the process of the threat status assessment of Poronia punctata, providing inspirations for future conservation actions.
Technology generation to dissemination: lessons learned from the tef improvement project
2018
Indigenous crops also known as orphan crops are key contributors to food security, which is becoming increasingly vulnerable with the current trend of population growth and climate change. They have the major advantage that they fit well into the general socio-economic and ecological context of developing world agriculture. However, most indigenous crops did not benefit from the Green Revolution, which dramatically increased the yield of major crops such as wheat and rice. Here, we describe the Tef Improvement Project, which employs both conventional- and molecular-breeding techniques to improve tef—an orphan crop important to the food security in the Horn of Africa, a region of the world w…
Priming maritime pine megagametophytes during somatic embryogenesis improved plant adaptation to heat stress
2021
In the context of global climate change, forest tree research should be addressed to provide genotypes with increased resilience to high temperature events. These improved plants can be obtained by heat priming during somatic embryogenesis (SE), which would produce an epigenetic-mediated transgenerational memory. Thereby, we applied 37 °C or 50 °C to maritime pine (Pinus pinaster) megagametophytes and the obtained embryogenic masses went through the subsequent SE phases to produce plants that were further subjected to heat stress conditions. A putative transcription factor WRKY11 was upregulated in priming-derived embryonal masses, and also in the regenerated P37 and P50 plants, suggesting …
The targeted overexpression of SlCDF4 in the fruit enhances tomato size and yield involving gibberellin signalling
2020
AbstractTomato is one of the most widely cultivated vegetable crops and a model for studying fruit biology. Although several genes involved in the traits of fruit quality, development and size have been identified, little is known about the regulatory genes controlling its growth. In this study, we characterized the role of the tomato SlCDF4 gene in fruit development, a cycling DOF-type transcription factor highly expressed in fruits. The targeted overexpression of SlCDF4 gene in the fruit induced an increased yield based on a higher amount of both water and dry matter accumulated in the fruits. Accordingly, transcript levels of genes involved in water transport and cell division and expans…
Highly efficient construction of infectious viroid-derived clones
2019
[Background] Viroid research generally relies on infectious cDNA clones that consist of dimers of the entire viroid sequence. At present, those dimers are generated by self-ligation of monomeric cDNA, a strategy that presents several disadvantages: (i) low efficiency, (ii) it is a non-oriented reaction requiring tedious screenings and (iii) additional steps are required for cloning into a binary vector for agroinfiltration or for in vitro RNA production.
Crop density rather than ruderal plants explains the response of ancient segetal weeds
2018
AbstractThe influence of ruderal species and crop density on ancient segetal weeds was examined. The experiment was carried out on experimental plots with three different sewing densities of winter triticale. Weeding of ruderal taxa was applied on half of the plots to explore the relation between segetal and ruderal weeds. Variation in species composition by environmental variables was analysed by running Redundancy Analysis (RDA) combined with performing forward selection and variation partitioning for “weeding” and “crop density” as explanatory variables. Additionally, the effect of crop density and weeding was tested separately for segetal and ruderal species along the seasons with the u…
Floral scent in a sexually deceptive Ophrys orchid: from headspace collections to solvent extractions
2018
Sexually deceptive orchid flowers use visual, tactile and olfactory cues of female insects in order to attract males of one or a few closely related species as pollinators. Ophrys L. is the most species-rich genus of sexually deceptive orchids in the Mediterranean Basin. Despite Ophrys pollinated by Andrena male bees use alkanes and mainly alkenes with specific double-bond positions as key signals that trigger pseudocopulatory behavior, some volatile organic compounds (VOCs) with low molecular weight were found as long-range attractants non-eliciting copulatory behavior. Since floral scents in Ophrys have been extensively studied by solvent extractions here we aimed to understand which flor…
Gametic and somatic embryogenesis through in vitro anther culture of different Citrus genotypes
2015
Abstract: In vitro tissue culture represents a useful technique for advancing Citrus breeding and propagation. Among in vitro regeneration systems, anther culture is commonly used to produce haploids and doubled haploids for a fast-track producing homozygous lines, in comparison with the traditional self-pollination approach, which involves several generations of selfing. In addition, anthers culture can produce somatic embryos that can also be used for clonal propagation. In this study, two thermal shocks were applied to the anthers of six Citrus genotypes (two clementine and four sweet oranges), just after they were put in culture. The response obtained was different depending on the geno…
Medicinal mushrooms: Valuable biological resources of high exploitation potential
2017
Higher Basidiomycetes and Ascomycetes mushrooms possess various immunological and anticancer properties. They also offer important health benefits and exhibit a broad spectrum of pharmacological activities including antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral, cytotoxic, immunomodulating, anti-inflammatory, antioxidative, antiallergic, antidepressive, antihyperlipidemic, antidiabetic, digestive, hepatoprotective, neuroprotective, nephroprotective, osteoprotective, and hypotensive activities. This minireview summarizes the perspectives, recent advances, and major challenges of medicinal mushrooms with reference to their nutraceutical properties and dietary value, the production of mushroom biomass …
Deregulated High Affinity Copper Transport Alters Iron Homeostasis inArabidopsis
2020
The present work describes the effects on iron homeostasis when copper transport was deregulated in Arabidopsis thaliana by overexpressing high affinity copper transporters COPT1 and COPT3 (COPTOE). A genome-wide analysis conducted on COPT1OE plants, highlighted that iron homeostasis gene expression was affected under both copper deficiency and excess. Among the altered genes were those encoding the iron uptake machinery and their transcriptional regulators. Subsequently, COPTOE seedlings contained less iron and were more sensitive than controls to iron deficiency. The deregulation of copper (I) uptake hindered the transcriptional activation of the subgroup Ib of basic helix-loop-helix (bHL…