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Topic Review
Structural Protein Genes of the Maize Flavonoid Pathway
Maize is one of the most important crops for human and animal consumption and contains a chemical arsenal essential for survival: flavonoids. Moreover, flavonoids are well known for their beneficial effects on human health. A total of twenty-one genes for the flavonoid pathway of maize was described. The first three genes participate in the general phenylpropanoid pathway. Four genes are common biosynthetic early genes for flavonoids, and fourteen are specific genes for the flavonoid subgroups, the anthocyanins, and flavone C-glycosides.
  • 1.6K
  • 29 Aug 2022
Topic Review
DOG1
DOG1 (Delay of Germination-1), is a master regulator of primary seed dormancy that acts in concert with ABA to delay germination. The strongly regulated expression of DOG1 increases during seed maturation, and the DOG1-mRNA disappears quickly after seed imbibition, although the DOG1 protein is more stable. DOG1 expression is notably induced by abscisic acid (ABA) and low temperature during seed maturation. The DOG1 action involves the suppression of the ABA HYPERSENSITIVE GERMINATION (AHG1/AHG3) activity to enhance ABA sensitivity and finally impose the primary dormancy (PD). This suppression needs the formation of DOG1-heme complex. Together, DOG1 function is not restricted to PD process, but that it is also required for other facets of seed maturation and plant development (e.g. flowering and drought tolerance), in part by also interfering with the ethylene signaling components.  
  • 1.6K
  • 29 Oct 2020
Topic Review
Polyphenolic Compounds in Underutilized Plant Seeds for Health
Plants represent a significant part of the human diet. Humans have utilized every part of plants for survival, and seeds are no exception. Seeds offer high protein, unsaturated fats, fibre, essential vitamins, and minerals for various food applications. They are also a promising reservoir of bioactive compounds, where various phytochemicals, such as polyphenolic compounds, capable of maintaining and improving well-being, are present in abundant quantities. Plants from Malvaceae and Cannabaceae families are known for their fibre-rich stems that benefit humankind by serving numerous purposes. For many centuries they have been exploited extensively for various commercial and industrial uses. Their seeds, which are often regarded as a by-product of fibre processing, have been scientifically discovered to have an essential role in combating hypercholesterolemia, diabetes, cancer, and oxidative stress.
  • 1.6K
  • 31 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Capsicum annuum L.
Capsicum annuum L. is a significant horticulture crop known for its pungent varieties and used as a spice. The pungent character in the plant, known as capsaicinoid, has been discovered to have various health benefits. However, its production has been affected due to various exogenous stresses, including diseases caused by a soil-borne pathogen, Pythium spp. Predominantly affecting the Capsicum plant in younger stages and causing damping-off, this pathogen can incite root rot in later plant growth stages. Due to the involvement of multiple Pythium spp. and their capability to disperse through various routes, their detection and diagnosis have become crucial. However, the quest for a point-of-care technology is still far from over. The use of an integrated approach with cultural and biological techniques for the management of Pythium spp. can be the best and most sustainable alternative to the traditionally used and hazardous chemical approach. The lack of race-specific resistance genes against Pythium spp. can be compensated with the candidate quantitative trait loci (QTL) genes in C. annuum L.
  • 1.6K
  • 28 Apr 2021
Topic Review
Cardoon
Cardoon, Cynara cardunculus L., is a perennial plant belonging to the family Asteraceae, which is native to the Mediterranean area. Cardoon, also known as artichoke thistle, is a complex species comprising three botanical varieties: the globe artichoke (var. scolymus (L.) Fiori), the cultivated cardoon (var. altilis DC.), and the wild cardoon (var. sylvestris (Lamk) Fiori). Cardoon is commonly used in the preparation of salads and soup dishes, production of energy and its flowers are used as vegetal rennet in cheese making. Cardoon leaves and stems, main by-products, are rich in bioactive compounds with important health benefits.
  • 1.6K
  • 08 Dec 2020
Topic Review
Tritordeum
Hexaploid tritordeum is the amphiploid derived from the cross between the wild barley Hordeum chilense and durum wheat. 
  • 1.6K
  • 04 Jun 2021
Topic Review
Biostimulants Boost Date Palm's Performance under Abiotic Stresses
Date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) is constantly hindered due to detrimental abiotic constraints. Thus, there is a crucial need to deal with this problem. The application of biostimulants, such as the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR), and organic amendments hold tremendous potential to ameliorate the growth and yield of date palm significantly. The strengthening of biostimulants’ main common modes of action is exerted through five main functions: biostimulation (essentially), biofertilization, bioprotection, biological control, and the role of bio-effector. Moreover, synergistic and complementary effects manifest through biochemical and nutritional benefits, as well as molecular modulation. In this sense, available data provide suggestive findings that corroborate the beneficial roles of biostimulants, thereby positioning them as promising eco-friendly tools that work toward resilience to abiotic stresses in date palm.
  • 1.6K
  • 12 Dec 2022
Topic Review
Plant Phenolics as Ligands for Metal(loid)s
Plant adaptive strategies have been shaped during evolutionary development in the constant interaction with a plethora of environmental factors, including the presence of metals/metalloids in the environment. Among adaptive reactions against either the excess of trace elements or toxic doses of non-essential elements, their complexation with molecular endogenous ligands, including phenolics, has received increasing attention.
  • 1.6K
  • 03 Feb 2023
Topic Review
Stilbenoids
Stilbenoids are well-known phytoalexins in the group of polyphenolic compounds. Because of their potent bioactivities, including antioxidant, antityrosinase, photoprotective, and antibacterial activities, stilbenoids are utilized as pharmaceutical active ingredient in cosmetic products. Thus, the demand for stilbenoids in the cosmetic industry is increasing. 
  • 1.6K
  • 26 Sep 2022
Topic Review
Bud derivatives for human health
The use of herbal food supplements, as a concentrate form of vegetable extracts, increased so much over the past years to count them among the relevant sources of dietetic polyphenols. Bud-derivatives are a category of botanicals perceived as a “new entry” in this sector since they are still poorly studied. Due to the lack of a manufacturing process specification, very different products can be found on the market in terms of their polyphenolic profile depending on the experimental conditions of manufacturing. In this research two different manufacturing processes, using two different protocols, and eight species (Carpinus betulus L., Cornus mas L., Ficus carica L., Fraxinus excelsior L., Larix decidua Mill., Pinus montana Mill., Quercus petraea (Matt.) Liebl., Tilia tomentosa Moench), commonly used to produce bud-derivatives, have been considered as a case study. An untargeted spectroscopic fingerprint of the extracts, coupled to chemometrics, provide to be a useful tool to identify these botanicals. The targeted phytochemical fingerprint by HPLC provided a screening of the main bud-derivatives polyphenolic classes highlighting a high variability depending on both method and protocol used. Nevertheless, ultrasonic extraction proved to be less sensitive to the different extraction protocols than conventional maceration regarding the extract polyphenolic profile.
  • 1.6K
  • 26 Oct 2020
Topic Review
Sambucus ebulus L. Fruit Extract
Sambucus ebulus L. (SE), also known as dwarf elder or dwarf elderberry, is a widely used as wound-healing, anti-nociceptive, anti-rheumatoid, anti-influenza, antibacterial and diuretic medicinal plant in Bulgaria, Turkey, Iran, Lebanon, Romania and Bosnia–Herzegovina.
  • 1.6K
  • 18 Nov 2021
Topic Review
Sea buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides L.) Resources in China
Sea buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides L.), as an economically and ecologically valuable plant with rich nutritional and bioactive compounds, has garnered significant interest. The demand for Sea buckthorn has explosive growth, highlighting the urgent need for the cultivation of fast-growing, high-quality Sea buckthorn seedlings. However, there are still some controversies in Sea buckthorn germplasm resource research.
  • 1.6K
  • 28 Dec 2023
Topic Review
RNA-Binding Proteins
RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) are a special class of proteins that interact with RNA providing an imperative checkpoint to fine-tune gene expression at the RNA level, thus presenting a key component of post-transcriptional regulation. RNA-binding proteins interact with the untranslated regions of RNAs that have cis-acting regulatory functions forming dynamic ribonucleoprotein complexes that control the fate of RNA. These RBPs regulate the synthesis, editing, processing (including capping, splicing and polyadenylation), transport and localization, storage, translation and turnover of RNA in diverse systems including mammals, yeast and plants. Essentially, post-transcriptional regulation is gaining increasing momentum as a critical component in adjusting global cellular transcript levels during development and in response to environmental stresses. Despite the technical challenges faced in plants in large-scale studies, several hundreds of RBPs have been unearthed and elucidated globally over the past few years. Recent discoveries have brought into light RBPs lacking classical RNA-binding domains, which could not be revealed using in silico analysis. Uncovering the hidden RBP repertoires will advance our understanding of the RBP-RNA interaction universe and has will set the pace towards potential biotechnological applications of RBPs.
  • 1.6K
  • 17 Dec 2020
Topic Review
Target of Rapamycin
The target of rapamycin (TOR) is an evolutionarily-conserved serine/threonine kinase that senses and integrates signals from the environment to coordinate developmental and metabolic processes. In plants, TOR has been shown to be a central regulator of growth and a negative regulator of catabolic processes such as autophagy.
  • 1.6K
  • 14 Dec 2020
Topic Review
CNSL as a Source of Alzheimer's Drug Leads
Cashew nut shell liquid (CNSL), a natural oil and a byproduct of cashew nut food processing, with a high content of phenolic lipids. The rational modification of their structures has emerged as a successful medicinal chemistry approach to the development of novel anti-AD lead candidates. The biological profile of the newly developed CNSL derivatives towards validated AD targets will be discussed together with the role of these molecular targets in the context of AD pathogenesis.
  • 1.6K
  • 26 Oct 2021
Topic Review
Reactive Oxygen Species/Salicylic Acid in Plant Immune Response
One of the earliest hallmarks of plant immune response is production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in different subcellular compartments, which regulate plant immunity. A suitable equilibrium, which is crucial to prevent ROS overaccumulation leading to oxidative stress, is maintained by salicylic acid (SA), a chief regulator of ROS. However, ROS not only act downstream of SA signaling, but are also proposed to be a central component of a self-amplifying loop that regulates SA signaling as well as the interaction balance between different phytohormones. The exact role of this crosstalk, the position where SA interferes with ROS signaling and ROS interferes with SA signaling and the outcome of this regulation, depend on the origin of ROS but also on the pathosystem. The precise spatiotemporal regulation of organelle-specific ROS and SA levels determine the effectiveness of pathogen arrest and is therefore crucial for a successful immune response. However, the regulatory interplay behind still remains poorly understood, as up until now, the role of organelle-specific ROS and SA in hypersensitive response (HR)-conferred resistance has mostly been studied by altering the level of a single component. In order to address these aspects, a sophisticated combination of research methods for monitoring the spatiotemporal dynamics of key players and transcriptional activity in plants is needed and will most probably consist of biosensors and precision transcriptomics. 
  • 1.6K
  • 23 Aug 2022
Topic Review
Plant Biosensors
This entry provides an overview of the available biosensors for following plant immune response, reported uses of more than one biosensor in the same chassis, biosensors applied to crops, and challenges of their use in plants.
  • 1.6K
  • 29 Apr 2021
Topic Review
New Breeding Techniques in Citrus
The development of novel citrus varieties with improved quality and resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses is one of the main purposes of breeding programs. Thus far, the use of conventional breeding techniques in citrus has been shown to be time consuming and diffcult due to the many limitations of typical of tree crops, such as the long juvenility and high heterozygosity. The application of NPBTs could overcome these problems, offering new tools that combine site-specific and targeted editing with a reduction in the time for plant breeding, thus leading to lower production costs. Many aspects need to be considered to apply transgenesis to citrus, among them transformation efficiency, and regeneration potential of citrus commercial varieties
  • 1.6K
  • 05 Nov 2020
Topic Review
Microbial Biostimulants
A microbial plant biostimulant, according to the Reg.UE 2019/1009, consists of a microorganism or a consortium of microorganisms able to stimulate plant nutrition processes independently of the product’s nutrient content with the sole aim of improving one or more of the following characteristics of the plant or the plant rhizosphere: (a) nutrient use efficiency; (b) tolerance to abiotic stress; (c) quality traits; (d) availability of confined nutrients in soil or rhizosphere. The allowed microorganisms are listed in the CMC-7 (Component Material Categories, number 7), which includes four different genera: Azotobacter spp., Mycorrhizal fungi, Rhizobium spp., and Azospirillum spp.
  • 1.6K
  • 22 Sep 2021
Topic Review
Seed Banking Effectiveness
Understanding seed viability under long-term storage conditions provides basic and useful information to investigate the effectiveness of seed banking. Besides the germination success, seedling establishment is also an important requirement, and a decisive step to ensure plant propagation. We used comparative data of germination, seedling growth, and survival percentage between fresh and 10-years-stored seeds of Senecio morisii, a narrow endemic and vulnerable species of Sardinia (Italy), in order to evaluate if differences exist in these traits. Stored seeds showed higher germination percentages than fresh ones, whereas seedling growth and survival did not present significant differences between them, except for seedling growth in plants produced from seeds germinated at 25 °C. This study allowed us to assess if seeds of S. morisii were able to germinate under controlled conditions, and if they maintained their viability and germination capacity for at least 10 years of long-term storage in the seed bank. In addition, the high seedling survival detected in both fresh and stored seeds suggests that stored seeds of S. morisii can be used to support reinforcement or reintroduction actions when fresh materials are not available.
  • 1.6K
  • 30 Oct 2020
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