Environmental sustainability fruit quality and production in mycorrhizal tomato plants without P fertilizing

The influence of root colonization by arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungus Funelliformis mosseae, on fruit quality, production and environmental sustainability were evaluated in field-tomato plants grown exposed to P-limited soil 5 µg g -1 soil (basal-soil) with nitrate fertilization (50 µg g -1 soil), after greenhouse germination and fungus colonization. After 60 days sowing (DAS), when the percentage of mycorrhizal root length (% RLC) raised at about 50%, the plants were transplanted in open field. During the experiment, the mycorrhization has affected a lot of physiological aspects like vegetative and reproductive growth, improving them and ended the fruiting with a major fruit production that was 50% higher than not mycorrhizal (NM) plants. The ripening process of the fruits was also followed by testing sugars content and ß-Amylase activity in fruits of NM and mycorrhizal (M) plants fruits. At 140 DAS, in the harvesting fruits stage, fruits of M plants showed significantly higher mineral nutrient sugars and organic nitrogen compounds as amino acids and protein, compared to fruits from NM plants. In particular, GLU-GLN-ASP and ASN raised about 35% more than fruits from NM plants, improving nutritional aspect and flavor of the product. THR-ILEU-LEU-VAL and LYS, essential amino acids in man nutrition, increased around 25% more than fruits from NM plants, too. In this contest, lycopene, total carotenoids, ascorbic acid and glutathione (GS) and reduced form (GSH) were also tested in ripe fruits. The overall results suggest that tomato roots colonization by mycorrhizal fungus Funelliformis mosseae affects host plant nutritional status, modifying reproductive behavior, fruits production and nutritional quality

Obesity and Breast Cancer: Interaction or Interference with the Response to Therapy?

Background: Aromatase inhibitors (AI) are widely used for treating hormone-sensitive breast cancer (BC). Obesity, however, due to aromatase-mediated androgen conversion into estradiol in the peripheral adipose tissue, might impair AI inhibitory capacity. We aimed at identifying a cut-off of body mass index (BMI) with significant prognostic impact, in a cohort of stage I-II BC patients on systemic adjuvant therapy with AI. Methods: we retrospectively evaluated routinely collected baseline parameters. The optimal BMI cut-off affecting disease-free survival (DFS) in AI-treated BC patients was identified through maximally selected rank statistics; non-linear association between BMI and DFS in the AI cohort was assessed by hazard-ratio-smoothed curve analysis using BMI as continuous variable. The impact of the BMI cut-off on survival outcomes was estimated through Kaplan-Meier plots, with log-rank test and hazard ratio estimation comparing patient subgroups. Results: A total of 319 BC patients under adjuvant endocrine therapy and/or adjuvant chemotherapy were included. Curve-fitting analysis showed that for a BMI cut-off >29 in AI-treated BC patients (n = 172), DFS was increasingly deteriorating and that the impact of BMI on 2-year DFS identified a cut-off specific only for the cohort of postmenopausal BC patients under adjuvant therapy with AI. Conclusion: in radically resected hormone-sensitive BC patients undergoing neoadjuvant or adjuvant chemotherapy and treated with AI, obesity represents a risk factor for recurrence, with a significantly reduced 2-year DFS