Mycorrhization of fagaceae forests within mediterranean ecosystems

Mediterranean Fagaceae forests are valuable due to their ecological and socioeconomic aspects. Some profitable plant species, such as Castanea (timber and chestnut), Quercus (timber and cork), and Fagus (timber), encounter in this habitat the excellent edaphoclimatic conditions to develop. All Fagaceae plants are commonly associated to ECM fungal species, which are found in these forests in quite stable communities, mainly enriched in Russulaceae and Telephoraceae species. Currently, the Mediterranean Basin is considered as one of the global biodiversity hotspots, since many of their endemic plant species are not found elsewhere and are now under threat. Due to climate changing and introduction of disease agents, Fagaceae forests are facing an adaptation challenge to both biotic and abiotic threats. Although ECM communities are highly disturbed by climate factors and tree disease incidence, they could play an important role in increasing water availability to the plant and also improving plant tree defense against pathogens. Recent advances, namely, on genomics and transcriptomics, are providing tools for increasing the understanding of Fagaceae mycorrhization process and stress responses to biotic and abiotic stresses. Such studies can provide new information for the implementation of the most adequate management policies for protecting threaten Mediterranean forests.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Transglutaminases : recent achievements and new sources

Transglutaminases are a family of enzymes (EC 2.3.2.13), widely distributed in various organs, tissues, and body fluids, that catalyze the formation of a covalent bond between a free amine group and the γ-carboxamide group of protein or peptide-bound glutamine. Besides forming these bonds, that exhibit high resistance to proteolytic degradation, transglutaminases also form extensively cross-linked, generally insoluble, protein biopolymers that are indispensable for the organism to create barriers and stable structures. The extremely high cost of transglutaminase of animal origin has hampered its wider application and has initiated efforts to find an enzyme of microbial origin. Since the early 1990s, many microbial transglutaminase-producing strains have been found, and production processes have been optimized. This has resulted in a rapidly increasing number of applications of transglutaminase in the food sector. However, applications of microbial transglutaminase in other sectors have also been explored, but in a much lesser extent. Our group has identified a transglutaminase in the oomycete Phytophthora cinnamomi, which is able to induct defense responses and disease-like symptoms. In this mini-review, we report the achievements in this area in order to illustrate the importance and the versatility of transglutaminases