Leguminous crops are usually sensitive to saline stress during germination and plant growth stages. The Salt Overly Sensitive (SOS) pathway is one of the key signaling pathways involved in salt translocation and tolerance in plants however, it is obscure in soybean. The current study describes the potential of calcium application on the mitigation of salinity stress and its impact on seed germination, morphological, physiological and biochemical attributes of soybean. The seeds from previously reported salt-tolerant and salt-susceptible soybean varieties were primed with water, calcium (10 and 20 mM), and stressed under 60, 80 and 100 mM NaCl and evaluated in various combinations. Results show that germination increased by 7% in calcium primed non-stressed seeds under non-stressing, whereas an improvement of 15%-25% was observed in germination under NaCl stress. Likewise, improvement in seedling length (3%-8%), plant height (9%-18%), number of nodes (3%-14%), SOD activity (20%) and Na+/K+ concentration (3%-5% reduction) in calcium primed plants, indicates alleviation of salinity-induced negative effects. In addition, this study also included in silico identification and confirmation of presence of Arabidopsis thaliana SOS genes orthologs in soybean. The research of amino acid sequences of SOS proteins from Arabidopsis thaliana (AtSOSs) within Glycine max genome displayed protein identity (60-80%) thus these identified homologs were called as GmSOS. Further phylogeny and in silico analyses showed that GmSOS orthologs contain similar gene structures, close evolutionary relationship, and same conserved motifs, reinforcing that GmSOSs belong to SOS family and they share many common features with orthologs from other species thus may perform similar functions. This is the first study that reports role of SOSs in salt-stress mitigation in soybean.

Plant derived compounds have always been an important source of medicines and have received significant attention in recent years due to their diverse pharmacological properties. Millions of plant-based herbal or traditional medicines are used to cure various types of cancers especially due to activation of proliferative genes. The aim of the present study was to characterize the altered and attenuated gene expression of the selected growth factor namely Transforming growth factor Beta -1 (TGFβ1) and MYC in human hepatoma-derived (Huh7) liver cancer cell lines in response to extracts of Artemisia absinthium dissolved in selected organic solvents. Ethanolic, methanolic and acetone extract of different plant parts (leaf, stem and flowers) was used to access the antiproliferative activity by MTT (3-(4,5-Dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-Diphenyltetrazolium Bromide) assay. Quantitative Real-Time RT-PCR revealed that the transcript levels of TGFβ1 are induced in the samples treated with methanolic extract of Artemisia absinthium. Furthermore, reduced expression levels of MYC gene was noticed in cancerous cells suggesting antiproliferative properties of the plant. This study further highlights the resistance profile of various microbes by antimicrobial susceptibility test with plant extracts. In addition, antidiabetic effect of Artemisia absinthium have also shown positive results. Our study elucidates the potentials of Artemisia absinthium as a medicinal plant, and highlights the differential expression of genes involved in its mitogenic and anti-proliferative activity with a brief account of its pharmacological action.

Phytonanotechnology plays a crucial part in the production of good quality and high-yield food. It can also alter the plant's production systems, hence permitting the efficient, controlled and stable release of agrochemicals such as fertilizers and pesticides. An advanced understanding of nanomaterials interaction with plant responses like localization and uptake, etc. could transfigure the production of crops with high disease resistance and efficient nutrients utilization. In agriculture, the use of nanomaterials has gained acceptance due to their wide-range applications. However, their toxicity and bioavailability are the major hurdles for their massive employment. Undoubtedly, nanoparticles positively influence seeds germination, growth and development, stress management and post-harvest handling of vegetables and fruits. These nanoparticles may also cause toxicity in plants through oxidative stress by generation of excessive reactive oxygen species thus affecting the cellular biomolecules and targeting different channels. Nanoparticles have shown to exert various effects on plants that are mainly affected by various attributes such as physicochemical features of nanomaterials, coating materials for nanoparticles, type of plant, growth stages and growth medium for plants. This article discusses the interaction, accretion and toxicity of nanomaterials in plants. The factors inducing nanotoxicity and the mechanisms followed by nanomaterials causing toxicity are also instructed. At the end, detoxification mechanism of plant is also presented.

CO2 is responsible for climate change and significant release of greenhouse gases in environment. CO2 consumption is becoming more common in processes like coal bed methane and enhanced oil recovery and it could be used in hydraulic fracturing, among other things. CO2 is consumed by drinks, foods, mineralization, chemicals and energy storage devices. We also talk about CO2 use project research and development around the world. Finally, we look at the significant obstacles and issues that will need to be addressed in the future for industrial applications and large scale productions. This research shows that CO2 consumption can spur the carbon capture and utilization technology development in future. However, given the amount of carbon dioxide produced globally carbon release and storage will remain the prior option even if it can be decreased in the near-to-medium term and complementary techniques are desirable. Recovery of oil and gas is the mostly done by the use of CO2 although, CO2 is still emitted in these operations. Other CO2 utilization technologies must be economically and societally viable in order to be implemented on a big scale in addition to their current technological feasibility. As a result, efforts should be focused on lowering energy cost and to introduce rules and regulations encouraging carbon capture, utilization, storage and raising public acceptability of the strategy as a whole.

Fusarium cotton wilt is a devastating disease of the cotton crop throughout the world, caused by Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. vasinfectum (FOV). Chemical control has many side effects, so, biological controls have been widely used for the management of Fusarium wilt. This study aimed to investigate the possible use of an actinomycetes Saccharothrix algeriensis (SA) NRRL B-24137 to control FOV. To access in-vitro anti-Fusarium ability of SA NRRL B-24137, dual culture assay, spore germination and seed germination tests were carried out. Following in-vitro investigations, several pot tests in a greenhouse environment were used to evaluate the biological control potential of SA NRRL B-24137 against FOV. Dual culture assay and spore germination revealed that SA NRRL B-24137 showed significant anti-Fusarium activity.During spore germination 87.77% inhibition of spore germination were observed. In pot experiments, SA NRRL B-24137 primed cotton seeds resulted in a 74.0% reduction in disease incidence. In soil there was a significant reduction in FOV spores in the presence of SA NRRL B-24137. Positive correlation was also observed on different concentrations of SA NRRL B-24137 towards FOV reduction. The results of this study showed that SA NRRL B-24137 has the potential to be employed as a biocontrol agent against Fusarium cotton wilt, improving cotton growth characteristics and yield.

Background The Arabidopsis CONSTITUTIVE EXPRESSER of PATHOGENESIS-RELATED GENES 5 (CPR5) has recently been shown to play a role in gating as part of the nuclear pore complex (NPC). Mutations in CPR5 cause multiple defects, including aberrant trichomes, reduced ploidy levels, reduced growth and enhanced resistance to bacterial and fungal pathogens. The pleiotropic nature of cpr5 mutations implicates that the CPR5 protein affects multiple pathways. However, little is known about the structural features that allow CPR5 to affect the different pathways. Results Our in silico studies suggest that in addition to three clusters of putative nuclear localization signals and four or five transmembrane domains, CPR5 contains two putative alternative translation start sites. To test the role of the methionine-encoding nucleotides implicated in those sites, metCPR5 cDNAs, in which the relevant nucleotides were changed to encode glutamine, were fused to the CPR5 native promoter and the constructs transformed to cpr5–2 plants to complement c pr5 -compromised phenotypes. The control and metCPR5 constructs were able to complement all cpr5 phenotypes, although the extent of complementation depended on the specific complementing plant lines. Remarkably, plants transformed with metCPR5 constructs showed larger leaves and displayed reduced resistance when challenged to Pseudomonas syringae pv Pst DC3000, as compared to control plants. Thus, the methionine-encoding nucleotides regulate growth and resistance. We propose that structural features of the CPR5 N-terminus are implicated in selective gating of proteins involved in regulating the balance between growth and resistance. Conclusion Plants need to carefully balance the amount of resources used for growth and resistance. The Arabidopsis CPR5 protein regulates plant growth and immunity. Here we show that N-terminal features of CPR5 are involved in the regulation of the balance between growth and resistance. These findings may benefit efforts to improve plant yield, while maintaining optimal levels of disease resistance.

Rapid and cost-efficient whole-genome sequencing of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is critical for understanding viral transmission dynamics. Here we show that using a new multiplexed set of primers in conjunction with the Oxford Nanopore Rapid Barcode library kit allows for faster, simpler, and less expensive SARS-CoV-2 genome sequencing. This primer set results in amplicons that exhibit lower levels of variation in coverage compared to other commonly used primer sets. Using five SARS-CoV-2 patient samples with Cq values between 20 and 31, we show that high-quality genomes can be generated with as few as 10,000 reads (approximately 5 Mbp of sequence data). We also show that mis-classification of barcodes, which may be more likely when using the Oxford Nanopore Rapid Barcode library prep, is unlikely to cause problems in variant calling. This method reduces the time from RNA to genome sequence by more than half compared to the more standard ligation-based Oxford Nanopore library preparation method at considerably lower costs.