The therapeutic potential of truffle fungi: a patent survey

The purpose of this article is to research and retrieve patent information regarding the therapeutic use of truffles. Truffles have a unique value as a foodstuff and impact positively on human health and well-being. They are applied in such industries as the pharmaceutical industry and the cosmetic industry. Patent documentation available in the Espacenet network and the Patentscope service were analyzed by key word and patent specifications were examined to describe state of the art and to identify scientific research trends in therapeutic applications of truffles. Medicinal properties of truffles such as the anticancer or cardiovascular effect, a reduction in blood lipids, immunological resistance and increased energy were identified. Other therapeutic benefits include sedative action, prevention of hormonal imbalances in women, pre-menopause symptom relief, senile urethritis and prostate disorders, sleep disorders and increased absorption of calcium from milk. Truffles can also be used to alleviate symptoms of milk intolerance such as diarrhoea or bloating, to ease rheumatic pains and to treat and prevent further development or recurrence of senile cataract

The therapeutic potential of truffle fungi: a patent survey

The purpose of this article is to research and retrieve patent information regarding the therapeutic use of truffles. Truffles have a unique value as a foodstuff and impact positively on human health and well-being. They are applied in such industries as the pharmaceutical industry and the cosmetic industry. Patent documentation available in the Espacenet network and the Patentscope service were analyzed by key word and patent specifications were examined to describe state of the art and to identify scientific research trends in therapeutic applications of truffles. Medicinal properties of truffles such as the anticancer or cardiovascular effect, a reduction in blood lipids, immunological resistance and increased energy were identified. Other therapeutic benefits include sedative action, prevention of hormonal imbalances in women, pre-menopause symptom relief, senile urethritis and prostate disorders, sleep disorders and increased absorption of calcium from milk. Truffles can also be used to alleviate symptoms of milk intolerance such as diarrhoea or bloating, to ease rheumatic pains and to treat and prevent further development or recurrence of senile cataract

SSR Markers for Trichoderma virens: Their Evaluation and Application to Identify and Quantify Root-Endophytic Strains

Abstract: Using biological fertilizers and pesticides based on beneficial soil microbes in order to reduce mineral fertilizers and chemical pesticides in conventional agriculture is still a matter of debate. In this regard, a European research project seeks to elucidate the role of root-endophytic fungi and to develop molecular tools to trace and quantify these fungi in the rhizosphere and root tissue. To do this, the draft genome sequence of the biocontrol fungus Trichoderma virens (T. virens) was screened for simple sequence repeats (SSRs) and primers were developed for 12 distinct loci. Primers were evaluated using a global collection of ten isolates where an average of 7.42 alleles per locus was detected. Nei's standard genetic distance ranged from 0.18 to 0.27 among the isolates, and the grand mean of haploid diversity in AMOVA analysis was 0.693 ± 0.019. Roots of tomato plants were inoculated with different strains and harvested six weeks later. Subsequent PCR amplification identified root-endophytic strains and co-colonization of roots by different strains. Markers were applied to qPCR to quantify T. virens strains in root tissue and to determine their identity using allele-specific melting curve analysis. Thus, the root-endophytic lifestyle of T. virens was OPEN ACCESS Diversity 2015, 7 361 confirmed, strains in roots were quantified and simultaneous colonization of roots by different strains was observed

Effect of Long-Term Agricultural Management on the Soil Microbiota Influenced by the Time of Soil Sampling

Application of agrochemicals and mechanization enabled increasing agriculturalproductivity yet caused various environmental and soil health-related problems.Agricultural practices affect soil microorganisms, which are the key players of manyecosystem processes. However, less is known about whether this effect differs betweentime points. Therefore, soil was sampled in winter (without crop) and in summer (inthe presence of maize) from a long-term field experiment (LTE) in Bernburg (Germany)managed either under cultivator tillage (CT) or moldboard plow (MP) in combinationwith either intensive nitrogen (N)-fertilization and pesticides (Int) or extensive reducedN-fertilization without fungicides (Ext), respectively. High-throughput sequencing of 16SrRNA gene and fungal ITS2 amplicons showed that changes in the microbial communitycomposition were correlated to differences in soil chemical properties caused by tillagepractice. Microbial communities of soils sampled in winter differed only depending onthe tillage practice while, in summer, also a strong effect of the fertilization intensity wasobserved. A small proportion of microbial taxa was shared between soils from the twosampling times, suggesting the existence of a stable core microbiota at the LTE. Ingeneral, taxa associated with organic matter decomposition (such as Actinobacteria,Bacteroidetes, Rhizopus, and Exophiala) had a higher relative abundance under CT.Among the taxa with significant changes in relative abundances due to different long-termagricultural practices were putative pathogenic (e.g., Gibellulopsis and Gibberella) andbeneficial microbial genera (e.g., Chitinophagaceae, Ferruginibacter, and Minimedusa).In summary, this study suggests that the effects of long-term agricultural managementpractices on the soil microbiota are influenced by the soil sampling time, and this needsto be kept in mind in future studies for the interpretation of field data.Fil: Fernandez Gnecco, Gabriela Amancay. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mar del Plata. Instituto de Investigaciones en Biodiversidad y Biotecnología; ArgentinaFil: Covacevich, Fernanda. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mar del Plata. Instituto de Investigaciones en Biodiversidad y Biotecnología; ArgentinaFil: Consolo, Verónica Fabiana. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mar del Plata. Instituto de Investigaciones en Biodiversidad y Biotecnología; ArgentinaFil: Behr, Jan H.. Leibniz Institute Of Vegetable And Ornamental Crops (; AlemaniaFil: Sommermann, Loreen. Department Of Agriculture, Ecotrophology And Landscape; AlemaniaFil: Moradtalab, Narges. Department Of Nutritional Crop Physiology, Institute Of; AlemaniaFil: Maccario, Lorrie. Section Of Microbiology, Department Of Biology, Univers; AlemaniaFil: Sørensen, Søren J.. Section Of Microbiology, Department Of Biology, Univers; AlemaniaFil: Deubel, Annette. Department Of Agriculture, Ecotrophology And Landscape; AlemaniaFil: Schellenberg, Ingo. Department Of Agriculture, Ecotrophology And Landscape; AlemaniaFil: Geistlinger, Joerg. Department Of Agriculture, Ecotrophology And Landscape; AlemaniaFil: Neumann, Günter. Department Of Nutritional Crop Physiology, Institute Of; AlemaniaFil: Grosch, Rita. Leibniz Institute Of Vegetable And Ornamental Crops (; AlemaniaFil: Smalla, Kornelia. Julius Kühn Institut Braunschweig; AlemaniaFil: Babin, Doreen. Julius Kühn Institut Braunschweig; Alemani

Inoculation with rhizobacterial consortia alleviates combined water and phosphorus deficit stress in intercropped faba bean and wheat

Our study aimed to assess the role of inoculation of faba bean/wheat intercrops with selected rhizobacterial consortia (composed of one rhizobium and two P solubilizing bacteria “PSB”) to alleviate the effects of combined water deficit and P limitation on faba bean/wheat intercropping vs. monocropping under greenhouse conditions. One Vicia faba L (Aguadulce) and one Triticum durum L. variety (Karim) were grown as a sole crop or were intercropped in pots containing a sterilized substrate (sand:peat 4:1 v/v) with either rock phosphate (RP) (unavailable P) or KH2PO4 in the nutrient solution (available P). Plant inoculation was performed using the rhizobacterial consortia C1 (Rhizobium laguerreae, Kocuria sp., and Pseudomonas sp.) and C2 (R. laguerreae, Rahnella sp., and Kocuria sp.). Two weeks after inoculation, the plants were subjected to water deficit with 40% substrate water holding capacity (WHC) vs. 80% WHC for the well-watered plants. The trial was assessed at the flowering stage, and the results showed that inoculation with both consortia (C1 and C2) improved faba bean biomass in terms of shoot, root, and nodules dry weight compared to inoculation with rhizobia alone. C2 improved these parameters by 19.03, 78.99, and 72.73%, respectively. The relative leaf water content decreased under combined stress, especially in response to C1 conferring significant improvement of this parameter in wheat intercrops. In faba bean under P limitation, inoculation with C2 increased stomatal conductance (gs), phosphatase, and phytase activity by 35.73, 166.94, and 26.16%, respectively, compared to plants inoculated with rhizobia alone. Furthermore, C2 also improved membrane stability under P deficit by 44.33 vs. 16.16% for C1 as compared to inoculation with rhizobia alone. In sole-cropped faba bean, inoculation with both consortia improved N accumulation compared to single inoculation with an increase of 70.75% under P limitation. Moreover, under combined stress, inoculation with C2 improved biomass and N content (112.98%) in intercropped wheat compared to the sole crop. Our findings revealed that consortium C2 might offer an agronomic advantage under water and P deficit and could serve as a useful inoculum for enhancing faba bean and wheat production in monocropping and intercropping systems

SSR Markers for Trichoderma virens: Their Evaluation and Application to Identify and Quantify Root-Endophytic Strains

Using biological fertilizers and pesticides based on beneficial soil microbes in order to reduce mineral fertilizers and chemical pesticides in conventional agriculture is still a matter of debate. In this regard, a European research project seeks to elucidate the role of root-endophytic fungi and to develop molecular tools to trace and quantify these fungi in the rhizosphere and root tissue. To do this, the draft genome sequence of the biocontrol fungus Trichoderma virens (T. virens) was screened for simple sequence repeats (SSRs) and primers were developed for 12 distinct loci. Primers were evaluated using a global collection of ten isolates where an average of 7.42 alleles per locus was detected. Nei’s standard genetic distance ranged from 0.18 to 0.27 among the isolates, and the grand mean of haploid diversity in AMOVA analysis was 0.693 ± 0.019. Roots of tomato plants were inoculated with different strains and harvested six weeks later. Subsequent PCR amplification identified root-endophytic strains and co-colonization of roots by different strains. Markers were applied to qPCR to quantify T. virens strains in root tissue and to determine their identity using allele-specific melting curve analysis. Thus, the root-endophytic lifestyle of T. virens was confirmed, strains in roots were quantified and simultaneous colonization of roots by different strains was observed

SchlüterSteffenChemBioEnvEngineeringQuantificationCapillaryTrapping_SupplementaryMaterial.pdf

A major difficulty in modeling multiphase flow in porous media is the emergence of trapped phases. Our experiments demonstrate that gas can be trapped in either single-pores, multipores, or in large connected networks. These large connected clusters can comprise up to eight grain volumes and can contain up to 50% of the whole trapped gas volume. About 85% of the gas volume is trapped by multipore gas clusters. This variety of possible trapped gas clusters of different shape and volume will lead to a better process understanding of bubble-mediated mass transfer. Since multipore gas bubbles are in contact with the solid surface through ultrathin adsorbed water films the interfacial area between trapped gas clusters and intergranular capillary water is only about 80% of the total gas surface. We could derive a significant (R²=0.98) linear relationship between the gas-water-interface and gas saturation. We found no systematic dependency of the front velocity of the invading water phase in the velocity range from 0.1 to 0.6 cm/min corresponding to capillary numbers from 2 x 10⁻⁷ to 10⁻⁶. Our experimental results indicate that the capillary trapping mechanism is controlled by the local pore structure and local connectivity and not by thermodynamics, i.e., by the minimum of the Free Energy, at least in the considered velocity range. Consistent with this physical picture is our finding that the trapping frequency (= bubble-size distribution) reflects the pore size distribution for the whole range of pore radii, i.e., the capillary trapping process is determined by statistics and not by thermodynamics.Keywords: interfacial area, gas clusters, capillary trappingKeywords: interfacial area, gas clusters, capillary trappin

Impact of long-term agricultural management practices on soil prokaryotic communities

International audienceThe profound intensification of agricultural practices by increased application of agro-chemicals, short crop rotations and ploughing resulted in loss of soil fertility, erosion and accumulation of soil-borne plant pathogens. Soil microbial communities are key players in ecosystem processes and are intimately linked to crop productivity and health. Thus a better understanding of how farming practices affect soil microbiota is needed in order to promote sustainable agriculture. The long-term field trial in Bernburg (Germany) established in 1992 provides a unique opportunity to assess the effects of i) the crop (maize vs. rapeseed) preceding the actual winter wheat culture, ii) tillage practice (mouldboard plough vs. cultivator tillage) and iii) standard nitrogen (N)-fertilization intensity with application of growth regulators and fungicides (intensive) compared to reduced N-fertilization without growth regulators and fungicides (extensive). We hypothesized that these different farming practices affect the soil prokaryotic community structures with consequences for their functional potential. Total community-DNA was extracted directly from soils sampled at wheat harvest. Illumina sequencing of 16S rRNA genes amplified from total community-DNA revealed a significant effect of tillage practice and the preceding crop on prokaryotic community structures, whereas the influence of N-fertilization intensity was marginal. A number of differentially abundant prokaryotic genera and their predicted functions between mouldboard plough vs. cultivator tillage as well as between different preceding crops were identified. Compared to extensive N-fertilization, intensive N-fertilization resulted in higher abundances of bacterial but not of archaeal amoA genes, that are involved in ammonia oxidation. Our data suggest that long-term farming strategies differently shape the soil prokaryotic community structure and functions, which should be considered when evaluating agricultural management strategies regarding their sustainability, soil health and crop performance

Schematic diagram of the long-term field trial.

<p>Experimental design: strip-split-plot design with five fields of crop rotation as main plots (lower panel, rotation cycle from right to left). Management practice (upper panel) for each main plot: tillage MP (left half) and CT (right half) as sub-plots and N-fertilization (int/ext) as sub-sub-plots in four replicates.</p