Assessing the effectiveness of different Pseudomonas syringae pv. actinidiae pre-inoculation procedures to promoting disease visual symptoms in adult kiwifruit plants

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Effect of different pre-inoculation procedures on leaf spotting appearance in adult kiwifruit plants artificially inoculated with Pseudomonas syringae pv. actinidiae

Phytopathology studies most often rely on laboratory, greenhouse or field experiments in which plants are artificially inoculated using a variety of pre-inoculation procedures that aim to improve plant infection success. Concerning the Kiwifruit Bacterial Canker (KBC), whose aetiological agent is the bacterium Pseudomonas syringae pv. actinidiae (Psa), the pre-inoculation procedures most often target leaf tissues, promoting bacterial colonization through natural (e.g., stomata) or artificial openings (e.g., leaf wounds). However, the variability in pre-inoculation methods can influence the infection dynamics, making pathogenicity analysis amongst different research studies very complex. Here, four pre-inoculation procedures were tested in adult kiwifruit plants (Actinidia chinensis var. deliciosa ‘Tomuri’; lignified 15-month-old plants grown in pots) for their effect on leaf spotting appearance at 21 days after inoculation. These procedures consisted of: (i) plant enclosure in a plastic bag (maintained 24 h before and 24 h after inoculation; BAG), (ii) leaf wounding with three superficial cuts (CUTS), (iii) plant maintenance at 5 ℃ for 24 h (COLD) and (iv) a combination of all these procedures (ALL). Plants mock-inoculated with Ringer’s solution were included in the experiment as control. Results showed that BAG was the treatment with highest efficacy in causing appearance of leaf spots, since plants showed 7.1, 15 and 40 times more leaf spots than plants from ALL, CUTS and COLD, respectively. Furthermore, treatments ALL, CUTS and COLD did not appear to be suitable pre-inoculation procedures for promoting KBC foliar symptoms. This study highlights the importance of following precise pre-inoculation procedures in plant artificial inoculation with Actinidia chinensis – Psa, where leaf symptoms appearance is commonly utilized in disease severity analysis.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Plant Antioxidants in Food Emulsions

Addition of free radical scavenging antioxidants (AOs) is one of practical strategies controlling the oxidative stability in food emulsions. Attention has been directed toward AOs derived from natural plant extracts with the capacity to improve health and well-being due to lack of consumers’ trust toward synthetic antioxidant in food. Nevertheless, antioxidant efficiency varies widely from one compound to another and the most abundant AOs in our diet are not necessarily those that have the best availability profile at the reaction place with free radicals. In this book chapter, we will provide a state-of-the-art summary of the uses of plant AOs in colloidal systems, ranging from their main structural features to their benefits for the human health and their antioxidant role in controlling the oxidative stress and, particularly, the oxidation of lipid-based food emulsions

Phenolic profiling and in vitro bioactivities of three medicinal Bryophyllum plants

Bryophyllum constitutes a subgenus within the genus Kalanchoe that contains several plant species used in traditional medicine worldwide for the treatment of several diseases. However, little is known about the phytoconstituents of Bryophyllum spp. and previous reports have pointed at their low in Planta concentrations of bioactive compounds. In this work, we take advantage of plant in vitro culture for the study of the phenolic compounds found in the aerial parts of Bryophyllum spp. and their associated bioactivities. Our results show that the induction of nutritional stress leads to an improved accumulation of phenolic compounds, mainly flavonols and anthocyanins, represented by myricetin and malvidin glycosides, respectively. This effect is mainly found for B. × houghtonii, whose hydroethanolic extracts promoted the highest antioxidant, cytotoxic and anti-inflammatory activities. In the case of cytotoxic activity, Bryophyllum extracts showed an enhanced activity against the MCF-7 human breast carcinoma cell line. Meanwhile, extracts from B. daigremontianum promoted a wide range of effectiveness against different bacterial and fungal strains. This study is committed to shed light about the phytochemical potential associated to this unexplored subgenus, with the aim of considering Bryophyllum spp. as a valuable source of bioactive compounds for their exploitation in food, cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries.The authors acknowledge the Spanish Ministry of Education for the FPU grant awarded to Pascual García-Pérez (FPU15/04849) and ADICAM research center for kindly providing the plant material.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Lamb–Shaffer syndrome: 20 Spanish patients and literature review expands the view of neurodevelopmental disorders caused by SOX5 haploinsufficiency

Lamb–Shaffer Syndrome (LSS; OMIM #616803; ORPHA #313892; ORPHA #313884) is an infrequent genetic disorder that affects multiple aspects of human development especially those related to the development of the nervous system. LSS is caused by variants in the SOX5 gene. At the molecular level, SOX5 gene encodes for a transcription factor containing a High Mobility Group (HMG) DNA-Binding domain with relevant functions in brain development in different vertebrate species. Clinical features of Lamb–Shaffer syndrome may include intellectual disability, delayed speech and language development, attention deficits, hyperactivity, autism spectrum disorder, visual problems and seizures. Additionally, patients with the syndrome may present distinct facial dimorphism such as a wide mouth with full lips, small chin, broad nasal bridge, and deep-set eyes. Other physical features that have been reported in some patients include short stature, scoliosis, and joint hypermobility. Here, we report the clinical and molecular characterization of a Spanish LSS cohort of new 20 patients and review all the patients published so far which amount for 111 patients. The most frequent features included developmental delay, intellectual disability, visual problems, poor speech development and facial dysmorphic features. Strikingly, pain insensitivity and hypermetropia seems to be more frequent than previously reported, based on the frequency seen in the Spanish cohort. Eighty-three variants have been reported so far, single nucleotide variants (SNV) and copy number variants represent 47% and 53%, respectively, from the total of variants reported. Similarly to previous reports, the majority of the SNVs variants of the novel patients reported herein fall in the HMG domain of the protein. However, new variants, affecting other functional domains, were also detected. In conclusion, LLS is a rare genetic disorder mostly characterized by a wide range of developmental and neurological symptoms. Early diagnosis would allow to start of care programs, clinical follow up, prospective studies and appropriate genetic counseling, to promote clinical and social improvement to have profound lifelong benefits for patients and their families. Further research is needed to better understand the underlying mechanisms of the syndrome related to SOX5 haploinsufficiency.European Regional Development Fund;Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Grant/AwardNumbers: PI20/01053, PMP22/00049,PMP21/0006

Constitutive gene expression profile segregates toxicity in locally advanced breast cancer patients treated with high-dose hyperfractionated radical radiotherapy

Breast cancer patients show a wide variation in normal tissue reactions after radiotherapy. The individual sensitivity to x-rays limits the efficiency of the therapy. Prediction of individual sensitivity to radiotherapy could help to select the radiation protocol and to improve treatment results. The aim of this study was to assess the relationship between gene expression profiles of ex vivo un-irradiated and irradiated lymphocytes and the development of toxicity due to high-dose hyperfractionated radiotherapy in patients with locally advanced breast cancer. Raw data from microarray experiments were uploaded to the Gene Expression Omnibus Database (GEO accession GSE15341). We obtained a small group of 81 genes significantly regulated by radiotherapy, lumped in 50 relevant pathways. Using ANOVA and t-test statistical tools we found 20 and 26 constitutive genes (0 Gy) that segregate patients with and without acute and late toxicity, respectively. Non-supervised hierarchical clustering was used for the visualization of results. Six and 9 pathways were significantly regulated respectively. Concerning to irradiated lymphocytes (2 Gy), we founded 29 genes that separate patients with acute toxicity and without it. Those genes were gathered in 4 significant pathways. We could not identify a set of genes that segregates patients with and without late toxicity. In conclusion, we have found an association between the constitutive gene expression profile of peripheral blood lymphocytes and the development of acute and late toxicity in consecutive, unselected patients. These observations suggest the possibility of predicting normal tissue response to irradiation in high-dose non-conventional radiation therapy regimens. Prospective studies with higher number of patients are needed to validate these preliminary results

Search for squarks and gluinos in events with isolated leptons, jets and missing transverse momentum at s√=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

The results of a search for supersymmetry in final states containing at least one isolated lepton (electron or muon), jets and large missing transverse momentum with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider are reported. The search is based on proton-proton collision data at a centre-of-mass energy s√=8 TeV collected in 2012, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 20 fb−1. No significant excess above the Standard Model expectation is observed. Limits are set on supersymmetric particle masses for various supersymmetric models. Depending on the model, the search excludes gluino masses up to 1.32 TeV and squark masses up to 840 GeV. Limits are also set on the parameters of a minimal universal extra dimension model, excluding a compactification radius of 1/R c = 950 GeV for a cut-off scale times radius (ΛR c) of approximately 30

Measurements of fiducial and differential cross sections for Higgs boson production in the diphoton decay channel at s√=8 TeV with ATLAS

Measurements of fiducial and differential cross sections are presented for Higgs boson production in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of s√=8 TeV. The analysis is performed in the H → γγ decay channel using 20.3 fb−1 of data recorded by the ATLAS experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The signal is extracted using a fit to the diphoton invariant mass spectrum assuming that the width of the resonance is much smaller than the experimental resolution. The signal yields are corrected for the effects of detector inefficiency and resolution. The pp → H → γγ fiducial cross section is measured to be 43.2 ±9.4(stat.) − 2.9 + 3.2 (syst.) ±1.2(lumi)fb for a Higgs boson of mass 125.4GeV decaying to two isolated photons that have transverse momentum greater than 35% and 25% of the diphoton invariant mass and each with absolute pseudorapidity less than 2.37. Four additional fiducial cross sections and two cross-section limits are presented in phase space regions that test the theoretical modelling of different Higgs boson production mechanisms, or are sensitive to physics beyond the Standard Model. Differential cross sections are also presented, as a function of variables related to the diphoton kinematics and the jet activity produced in the Higgs boson events. The observed spectra are statistically limited but broadly in line with the theoretical expectations