The dominant allele Aft induces a shift from flavonol to anthocyanin production in response to UV-B radiation in tomato fruit

The introgression of the A ft allele into domesticated tomato induced a shift from flavonol to anthocyanin production in response to UV-B radiation, while the hp - 1 allele negatively influenced the response of flavonoid biosynthesis to UV-B. Introgression of the dominant allele Anthocyanin fruit (Aft) from Solanum chilense induces anthocyanin accumulation in the peel of tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) fruit. UV-B radiation can influence plant secondary metabolism regulating the expression of several genes, among which those involved in flavonoid biosynthesis. Here, we investigated whether post-harvest UV-B treatment could up-regulate flavonoid production in tomato fruits and whether the Aft allele could affect flavonoid biosynthesis under UV-B radiation. Mature green fruits of an anthocyanin-rich tomato mutant line (SA206) and of its wild-type reference, cv. Roma, were daily subjected to post-harvest UV-B treatment until full ripening. Up-regulation of CHS and CHI transcription by UV-B treatment induced flavonoid accumulation in the peel of cv. Roma. Conversely, UV-B decreased the total flavonoid content and CHS transcript levels in the SA206 peel. SA206 being a double mutant containing also hp-1 allele, we investigated also the behavior of hp-1 fruit. The decreased peel flavonoid accumulation and gene transcription in response to UV-B suggest that hp-1 allele is involved in the marked down-regulation of the flavonoid biosynthesis observed in SA206 fruit. Interestingly, in SA206, UV-B radiation promoted the synthesis of delphinidin, petunidin, and malvidin by increasing F3'5'H and DFR transcription, but it decreased rutin production, suggesting a switch from flavonols to anthocyanins. Finally, although UV-B radiation does not reach the inner fruit tissues, it down-regulated flavonoid biosynthesis in the flesh of both genotypes. This study provides, for the first time, evidence that the presence of the functional Aft allele, under UV-B radiation, redirects flavonoid synthesis towards anthocyanin production and suggests that the hp-1 allele negatively influences the response of flavonoid biosynthesis to UV-B

Nutritional Regimes Enriched with Antioxidants as an Efficient Adjuvant for IBD Patients under Infliximab Administration, a Pilot Study

Antioxidants are privileged candidates for the development of adjuvants able to improve the efficiency of pharmacological therapies, particularly for chronic inflammatory syndromes. During the last 20 years, anti-TNFα (tumor necrosis factor alpha) monoclonal antibodies infusion has been the biological therapy most frequently administered but there is still large space for improvement in disease remission rates and maintenance. In this context, nutritional bioactive compounds contained in dietary patterns or included as supplements, may act as adjuvants for the induction and maintenance of IBD (inflammatory bowel diseases) remission. To verify this possibility, a single-center preliminary study (SI-CURA, Soluzioni Innovative per la gestione del paziente e il follow up terapeutico della Colite UlceRosA) was designed and carried out to evaluate whether a daily administration of purple corn supplement could improve the response to Infliximab (IFX) infusion of IBD patients with both Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC). A cohort of 47 patients was enrolled in the study. Biological samples were collected before the first and the third IFX infusion. All patients received nutritional guidelines, 27 of them received commercial red fruit tea with low anthocyanins content, while 20 received a purple corn supplement with a high anthocyanin content. Results show that the administration of an antioxidant-enriched purple corn supplement could improve IFX-mediated disease remission in terms of circulating inflammatory markers. Comparison between CD and UC patients revealed that, at this anthocyanin dosage, the purple corn extract administration improved the IFX response in CD but not in UC patients. Our results may pave the way for a new metacentric study of CD patients, recruiting a wider cohort and followed-up over a longer observational time

Riattivazione di paesi abbandonati e in via di abbandono: il Borgo di Carbonara nel Comune di Aquilonia (AV)

In Europa, ed in Italia in particolare, il fenomeno dello spopolamento di interi comuni delle aree interne, in particolare montane, è una realtà in costante evoluzione che richiede riflessioni urgenti ed interventi efficaci a livello locale e nazionale. Il rapporto di Confcommercio-Legambiente sull’Italia del disagio insediativo 1996-2016 parla di 1650 paesi abbandonati al 2016. Il rischio è la perdita, oltre che di un patrimonio di valore storico-culturale, di un’immensa risorsa in termini economici, sociali e soprattutto ambientali, in cui è sedimentata una memoria storica legata al ‘fare’. Sebbene negli ultimi anni assistiamo ad una lenta riscoperta del ruolo strategico che tali luoghi possono rivestire all’interno di un quadro complessivo di sviluppo del territorio e di decompressione delle aree urbane congestionate, mancano in Italia esperienze capaci di innescare processi innovativi di lungo periodo. Il progetto descritto nel presente paper, a partire dalle potenzialità offerte dalla rivoluzione tecnologica e culturale in atto a livello mondiale, propone un modello di riattivazione delle aree montane interne basato sul rinnovamento delle abilità locali, con l’apporto di know-how creativo da parte di makers. Tale strategia mira ad accrescere la resilienza di tali territori, innescando processi relazionali e produttivi dinamici e duraturi. La sperimentazione è in atto nel Borgo di Carbonara, sull’altopiano irpino, abbandonato a seguito del terremoto del 1930

How Can Research on Plants Contribute to Promoting Human Health?[OA]

One of the most pressing challenges for the next 50 years is to reduce the impact of chronic disease. Unhealthy eating is an increasing problem and underlies much of the increase in mortality from chronic diseases that is occurring worldwide. Diets rich in plant-based foods are strongly associated with reduced risks of major chronic diseases, but the constituents in plants that promote health have proved difficult to identify with certainty. This, in turn, has confounded the precision of dietary recommendations. Plant biochemistry can make significant contributions to human health through the identification and measurement of the many metabolites in plant-based foods, particularly those known to promote health (phytonutrients). Plant genetics and metabolic engineering can be used to make foods that differ only in their content of specific phytonutrients. Such foods offer research tools that can provide significant insight into which metabolites promote health and how they work. Plant science can reduce some of the complexity of the diet-health relationship, and through building multidisciplinary interactions with researchers in nutrition and the pathology of chronic diseases, plant scientists can contribute novel insight into which foods reduce the risk of chronic disease and how these foods work to impact human health

Comparative Analysis of Histone H3K4me3 Distribution in Mouse Liver in Different Diets Reveals the Epigenetic Efficacy of Cyanidin-3-O-glucoside Dietary Intake

Background: Different diets result in significantly different phenotypes through metabolic and genomic reprogramming. Epigenetic marks, identified in humans and mouse models through caloric restriction, a high-fat diet or the intake of specific bioactives, suggest that genomic reprogramming drives this metabolic reprogramming and mediates the effect of nutrition on health. Histone modifications encode the epigenetic signal, which adapts genome functions to environmental conditions, including diets, by tuning the structure and properties of chromatin. To date, the effect of different diets on the genome-wide distribution of critical histone marks has not been determined. Methods: Using chromatin immunoprecipitation sequencing, we investigated the distribution of the trimethylation of lysine 4 of histone H3 in the liver of mice fed for one year with five different diets, including: chow containing yellow corn powder as an extra source of plant bioactives or specifically enriched with cyanidin-3-O-Glucoside, high-fat-enriched obesogenic diets, and caloric-restricted pro-longevity diets. Conclusions: Comparison of the resulting histone mark profiles revealed that functional food containing cyanidin determines a broad effect

Remarkable antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties of wastes from fermented pomegranate and ellagic acid release profile under simulated digestion conditions.

Fruit and vegetable fermentation techniques are widely used as methodologies to preserve food. Fermentation processes lead to considerable amounts of residues that could contain bioactive compounds deriving from those originally present in the raw materials and modified by fermentation, or accumulate single components at high concentrations. Wastes deriving from production of \u201cwines\u201d by fermentation of Punica granatum, fermented pomegranate wastes (FPW), showed a marked antioxidant activity in a series of conventional chemical tests. HPLC /MS analyses of the methanol extracts showed the presence of ellagic acid (EA) as the main component at levels up to 40% on a w/w basis together with minor species that were further investigated by 1D and 2D NMR spectroscopy without fractionation. Experiments using murine macrophages showed a stronger effect of the FPW extracts in reducing the LPS-induced expression of pro-inflammatory genes IL-1\u3b2, IL-6, TNF-\uf061 and iNOS compared to the fresh fruit extracts to a degree correlating with EA levels. Under simulated gastro intestinal conditions, EA was slowly released from FPW up to 30% of the overall content over 2 hrs only at the slightly alkaline pHs simulating the small intestine environment, suggesting a potential of the material in nutraceuticals and other applications

The Arabidopsis <i>NF-YA3</i> and <i>NF-YA8</i> Genes Are Functionally Redundant and Are Required in Early Embryogenesis

<div><p>Nuclear factor Y (NF-Y) is a trimeric transcription factor composed of three distinct subunits called NF-YA, NF-YB and NF-YC. In <i>Arabidopsis thaliana</i>, NF-Y subunits are known to play roles in many processes, such as gametogenesis, embryogenesis, seed development, drought resistance, ABA signaling, flowering time, primary root elongation, Endoplasmic Reticulum (ER) stress response and blue light responses. Here, we report that the closely related <i>NF-YA3</i> and <i>NF-YA8</i> genes control early embryogenesis. Detailed GUS and <i>in situ</i> analyses showed that <i>NF-YA3</i> and <i>NF-YA8</i> are expressed in vegetative and reproductive tissues with the highest expression being during embryo development from the globular to the torpedo embryo stage. Plants from the <i>nf-ya3</i> and <i>nf-ya8</i> single mutants do not display any obvious phenotypic alteration, whereas <i>nf-ya3 nf-ya8</i> double mutants are embryo lethal. Morphological analyses showed that the <i>nf-ya3 nf-ya8</i> embryos fail to undergo to the heart stage and develop into abnormal globular embryos with both proembryo and suspensor characterized by a disordered cell cluster with an irregular shape, suggesting defects in embryo development. The suppression of both <i>NF-YA3</i> and <i>NF-YA8</i> gene expression by RNAi experiments resulted in defective embryos that phenocopied the <i>nf-ya3 nf-ya8</i> double mutants, whereas complementation experiments partially rescued the abnormal globular <i>nf-ya3 nf-ya8</i> embryos, confirming that <i>NF-YA3</i> and <i>NF-YA8</i> are required in early embryogenesis. Finally, the lack of GFP expression of the auxin responsive <i>DR5rev::GFP</i> marker line in double mutant embryos suggested that mutations in both <i>NF-YA3</i> and <i>NF-YA8</i> affect auxin response in early developing embryos. Our findings indicate that <i>NF-YA3</i> and <i>NF-YA8</i> are functionally redundant genes required in early embryogenesis <i>of Arabidopsis thaliana</i>.</p></div

A biochemical and molecular dissection of fruit anthocyanins in anthocyanin-rich tomato mutant after post-harvest UV-B treatment

Phenylpropanoid consumption is well-known to be associated with a reduced risk of several human diseases. Many studies demonstrated that UV-B may influence phenylpropanoid metabolism. This work investigates how UV-B radiation can modulate the transcription of different genes involved in the phenylpropanoid pathway, in fruits of the tomato line SA206-1- 2-2 (with the anthocyanin fruit Aft gene), characterised by purple spots on fruit surface, and in its wild type, cv Roma. Fruits, harvested at mature green stage, were irradiated with UV-B (1h a day, 6.08 kJ m-2 d-1) until red ripe stage. UV-B treatment induced an overall stimulation of the flavonoid biosynthetic pathway in Roma peel. In SA206 peel, early biosynthetic genes (CHS, F3H and F3’H) were down- regulated, leading to a decrease in downstream metabolites. However, F3’5’H and DFR transcription, as well as delphinidin, petunidin and malvidin levels, increased, indicating a metabolic shift towards anthocyanin synthesis in response to UV-B irradiation

In situ analyses of <i>NF-YA3</i> and <i>NF-YA8</i> expression in developing flower and seed.

<p>Longitudinal sections of developing flowers, showing <i>NF-YA3</i> (A-E) and <i>NF-YA8</i> (F–J) expression in flower at stage 8 (A,F), in flower at stage 9 (B,G), stage 11 (C,H), 12 (D,I) and stage 13 (E,J). Stages of flower development are according to Bowman, 1994. Longitudinal sections of developing seeds, showing <i>NF-YA3</i> (K–P) and <i>NF-YA8</i> (Q–V) expression in different stages of embryo development: (K,Q) embryo at early globular stage, (L,R) globular, (M,S) mid-heart, (N,T) late-heart, (O,U) torpedo and (P,V) cotyledon stage. Arrows indicate endosperm cells. Abbreviations: p, placenta; c, carpel; op, ovule primordia; o, ovule; a, anther; tm, tetrad of microspores; pg, pollen grains; t, tapetum. Bars = 50 µm.</p

Phenotype of <i>RNAi::A3/A8</i> embryos and quantitative real-time RT-PCR analyses.

<p>(A) Cleared seeds viewed with Nomarski optics. Wild-type embryo at cotyledon stage and defective arrested embryos present in the same siliques at 10 DAP from <i>nf-ya3 RNAi::A3/A8</i> and <i>nf-ya8 RNAi::A3/A8</i> lines. Bars = 50 µm. (B) Expression levels of <i>NF-YA3</i> and <i>NF-YA8</i> genes in <i>RNAi::A3/A8</i> lines. Total RNAs were extracted from siliques of wild-type and of <i>nf-ya3 RNAi::A3/A8</i> and <i>nf-ya8 RNAi::A3/A8</i> plants and analyzed by real time RT-PCR. Wild type siliques were used as calibrator for relative expression levels for each gene analyzed. Bars represent standard deviations of measurements performed in triplicate in three biological replicates.</p