FUNCTIONAL CHARACTERIZATION OF A TOMATO GLUTHATHIONE S TRANSFERASE GENE AND ITS IMPLICATION IN THE PLANT RESPONSE TO ENVIRONMENTAL STRESSES

Mitigating the negative effects of abiotic stresses on crop productivity is pivotal in order to meet the global demand for food and other agricultural commodities. Abiotic stresses caused by deficiencies or excesses in environmental factors such as water, salt, light, and temperature can substantially reduce plant growth and productivity and even survival. Abiotic stresses were estimated to cause an overall yield loss of ~70% in key agricultural crops and global warming is even expected to further worsen food security. Abiotic stresses induce in plant cells increasing levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS) that are critical for stress signaling and mainly affect chloroplast protein synthesis and photosystem II repair. A plethora of antioxidants and antioxidant enzymes protect plant cells from oxidative stresses caused by an excess of ROS accumulation, thus engineering the cell redox cycle for enhancing the ROS-scavenging capacity might contribute to empower plant stress tolerance. Glutathione S-transferases (GSTs) is a multigene superfamily with diverse cellular mechanisms and metabolic functions and has been considered as one of the key members of plant stress modulation pathways. Our goal is to investigates the role of a tomato glutathione S-transferase (GST - Solyc07g056420) gene in controlling plant stress response. Tobacco lines overexpressing the Solyc07g056420 coding sequence (OE) accumulated significantly higher levels of hydrogen peroxide in leaves and decreased leaf levels of flavonoids, chlorophyll A and antioxidant capacity compared with control plants. OE 40 days old plants underwent differential watering treatments, i.e. full reintegration of water lost by evapo transpiration (FWR) and restitution of 50% of lost water (HWR). Under HWR conditions, OE plants showed a reduced occurrence of leaf injuries and responded to drought with a significantly higher increase in leaf chlorophyll A, chlorophyll B, hydrogen peroxide and antioxidant capacity compared to control plants. These results suggested that the hyper-accumulation of H2O2 induced in leaves by the overexpression of the Solyc07g056420 coding sequence and compensated by the adjusting the antioxidant capacity might lead to an enhancement of plant responsiveness to drought. Ongoing experiments will further investigate the functional role of the tomato Solyc07g056420 within the stress signaling network and its possible involvement in the modulation of plant response to other environmental stresses

Risk factors and incidence of long-COVID syndrome in hospitalized patients: does remdesivir have a protective effect?

BACKGROUND: The definition of 'long-COVID syndrome' (LCS) is still debated and describes the persistence of symptoms after viral clearance in hospitalized or non-hospitalized patients affected by coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). AIM: In this study, we examined the prevalence and the risk factors of LCS in a cohort of patients with previous COVID-19 and followed for at least 6 months of follow-up. DESIGN: We conducted a prospective study including all hospitalized patients affected by COVID-19 at our center of Infectious Diseases (Vercelli, Italy) admitted between 10 March 2020 and 15 January 2021 for at least 6 months after discharge. Two follow-up visits were performed: after 1 and 6 months after hospital discharge. Clinical, laboratory and radiological data were recorded at each visit. RESULTS: A total of 449 patients were included in the analysis. The LCS was diagnosed in 322 subjects at Visit 1 (71.7%) and in 206 at Visit 2 (45.9); according to the post-COVID-19 functional status scale we observed 147 patients with values 2-3 and 175 with values >3 at Visit 1; at Visit 2, 133 subjects had the score between 2-3 and 73 > 3. In multivariate analysis, intensive care unit (ICU) admission (OR = 2.551; 95% CI = 1.998-6.819; P = 0.019), time of hospitalization (OR = 2.255; 95% CI = 1.018-6.992; P = 0.016) and treatment with remdesivir (OR = 0.641; 95% CI = 0.413-0.782; P < 0.001) were independent predictors of LCS. CONCLUSIONS: Treatment with remdesivir leads to a 35.9% reduction in LCS rate in follow-up. Severity of illness, need of ICU admission and length of hospital stay were factor associated with the persistence of PCS at 6 months of follow-up

The role of Italy in the use of advanced plant breeding techniques on fruit trees: state of the art and future perspectives

Climate change is deeply impacting the food chain production, lowering quality and yield. In this context, the international scientific community has dedicated many efforts to enhancing resilience and sustainability in agriculture. Italy is among the main European producers of several fruit trees; therefore, national research centers and universities undertook several initiatives to maintain the specificity of the ‘Made in Italy’ label. Despite their importance, fruit crops are suffering from difficulties associated with the conventional breeding approaches, especially in terms of financial commitment, land resources availability, and long generation times. The ‘new genomic techniques’ (NGTs), renamed in Italy as ‘technologies for assisted evolution’ (TEAs), reduce the time required to obtain genetically improved cultivars while precisely targeting specific DNA sequences. This review aims to illustrate the role of the Italian scientific community in the use of NGTs, with a specific focus on Citrus, grapevine, apple, pear, chestnut, strawberry, peach, and kiwifruit. For each crop, the key genes and traits on which the scientific community is working, as well as the technological improvements and advancements on the regeneration of local varieties, are presented. Lastly, a focus is placed on the legal aspects in the European and in Italian context

Pathogenic VCP mutations induce mitochondrial uncoupling and reduced ATP levels.

Valosin-containing protein (VCP) is a highly expressed member of the type II AAA+ ATPase family. VCP mutations are the cause of inclusion body myopathy, Paget’s disease of the bone, and frontotemporal dementia (IBMPFD) and they account for 1%–2% of familial amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Using fibroblasts from patients carrying three independent pathogenic mutations in the VCP gene, we show that VCP deficiency causes profound mitochondrial uncoupling leading to decreased mitochondrial membrane potential and increased mitochondrial oxygen consumption. This mitochondrial uncoupling results in a significant reduction of cellular ATP production. Decreased ATP levels in VCP-deficient cells lower their energy capacity, making them more vulnerable to high energy-demanding processes such as ischemia. Our findings propose a mechanism by which pathogenic VCP mutations lead to cell death

Location of chlorogenic acid biosynthesis pathway and polyphenol oxidase genes in a new interspecific anchored linkage map of eggplant

© Gramazio et al.; licensee BioMed Central. 2014. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated

Assessment of the reliability of the motor unit size index (MUSIX) in single subject “round-robin” and multi-centre settings

Objective The motor unit size index (MUSIX) is incorporated into the motor unit number index (MUNIX). Our objective was to assess the intra-/inter-rater reliability of MUSIX in healthy volunteers across single subject “round robin” and multi-centre settings. Methods Data were obtained from i). a round-robin assessment in which 12 raters (6 with prior experience and 6 without) assessed six muscles (abductor pollicis brevis, abductor digiti minimi, biceps brachii, tibialis anterior, extensor digitorum brevis and abductor hallucis) and ii). a multi-centre study with 6 centres studying the same muscles in 66 healthy volunteers. Intra/inter-rater data were provided by 5 centres, 1 centre provided only intra-rater data. Intra/inter-rater variability was assessed using the coefficient of variation (COV), Bland-Altman plots, bias and 95% limits of agreement. Results In the round-robin assessment intra-rater COVs for MUSIX ranged from 7.8% to 28.4%. Inter-rater variability was between 7.8% and 16.2%. Prior experience did not impact on MUSIX values. In the multi-centre study MUSIX was more consistent than the MUNIX. Abductor hallucis was the least reliable muscle. Conclusions The MUSIX is a reliable neurophysiological biomarker of reinnervation. Significance MUSIX could provide insights into the pathophysiology of a range of neuromuscular disorders, providing a quantitative biomarker of reinnervation

Predicting functional impairment trajectories in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: a probabilistic, multifactorial model of disease progression.

To employ Artificial Intelligence to model, predict and simulate the amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) progression over time in terms of variable interactions, functional impairments, and survival. We employed demographic and clinical variables, including functional scores and the utilisation of support interventions, of 3940 ALS patients from four Italian and two Israeli registers to develop a new approach based on Dynamic Bayesian Networks (DBNs) that models the ALS evolution over time, in two distinct scenarios of variable availability. The method allows to simulate patients' disease trajectories and predict the probability of functional impairment and survival at different time points. DBNs explicitly represent the relationships between the variables and the pathways along which they influence the disease progression. Several notable inter-dependencies were identified and validated by comparison with literature. Moreover, the implemented tool allows the assessment of the effect of different markers on the disease course, reproducing the probabilistically expected clinical progressions. The tool shows high concordance in terms of predicted and real prognosis, assessed as time to functional impairments and survival (integral of the AU-ROC in the first 36 months between 0.80-0.93 and 0.84-0.89 for the two scenarios, respectively). Provided only with measurements commonly collected during the first visit, our models can predict time to the loss of independence in walking, breathing, swallowing, communicating, and survival and it can be used to generate in silico patient cohorts with specific characteristics. Our tool provides a comprehensive framework to support physicians in treatment planning and clinical decision-making. [Abstract copyright: © 2022. The Author(s).