Abstract
Seagrass
Cymodocea nodosa
was sampled off the Vulcano island, in the vicinity of a submarine volcanic vent. Leaf samples were collected from plants growing in a naturally acidified site, ...influenced by the long-term exposure to high CO
2
emissions, and compared with others collected in a nearby meadow living at normal
p
CO
2
conditions. The differential accumulated proteins in leaves growing in the two contrasting
p
CO
2
environments was investigated. Acidified leaf tissues had less total protein content and the semi-quantitative proteomic comparison revealed a strong general depletion of proteins belonging to the carbon metabolism and protein metabolism. A very large accumulation of proteins related to the cell respiration and to light harvesting process was found in acidified leaves in comparison with those growing in the normal
p
CO
2
site. The metabolic pathways linked to cytoskeleton turnover also seemed affected by the acidified condition, since a strong reduction in the concentration of cytoskeleton structural proteins was found in comparison with the normal
p
CO
2
leaves. Results coming from the comparative proteomics were validated by the histological and cytological measurements, suggesting that the long lasting exposure and acclimation of
C. nodosa
to the vents involved phenotypic adjustments that can offer physiological and structural tools to survive the suboptimal conditions at the vents vicinity.
Usually regarded as less evolved than their more recently diverged vascular sisters, which currently dominate vegetation landscape, bryophytes seem having nothing to envy to the defensive arsenal of ...other plants, since they had acquired a suite of chemical traits that allowed them to adapt and persist on land. In fact, these closest modern relatives of the ancestors to the earliest terrestrial plants proved to be marvelous chemists, as they traditionally were a popular remedy among tribal people all over the world, that exploit their pharmacological properties to cure the most different diseases. The phytochemistry of bryophytes exhibits a stunning assortment of biologically active compounds such as lipids, proteins, steroids, organic acids, alcohols, aliphatic and aromatic compounds, polyphenols, terpenoids, acetogenins and phenylquinones, thus it is not surprising that substances obtained from various species belonging to such ancestral plants are widely employed as antitumor, antipyretic, insecticidal and antimicrobial. This review explores in particular the antifungal potential of the three Bryophyta divisions-mosses (Musci), hornworts (Anthocerotae) and liverworts (Hepaticae)-to be used as a sources of interesting bioactive constituents for both pharmaceutical and agricultural areas, providing an updated overview of the latest relevant insights.
The
spp. exhibited an ability to tolerate the organophosphates. This study aimed to explore the effects of the herbicide glyphosate on a selected strain of the cyanobacteria
cultivated in a company. ...Experimental cultivations acclimated in aquaria were treated with 0.2 mM glyphosate N-(phosphonomethyl) glycine. The culture biomass, the phycocyanin, and the chlorophyll
concentrations were evaluated every week during 42 days of treatment. The differentially expressed proteins in the treated cyanobacteria versus the control cultivations were evaluated weekly during 21 days of treatment. Even if the glyphosate treatment negatively affected the biomass and the photosynthetic pigments, it induced resistance in the survival
population. Proteins belonging to the response to osmotic stress and methylation pathways were strongly accumulated in treated cultivation; the response to toxic substances and the negative regulation of transcription seemed to have a role in the resistance. The glyphosate-affected enzyme, chorismate synthase, a key enzyme in the shikimic acid pathway, was accumulated during treatment, suggesting that the surviving strain of
expressed a glyphosate-resistant target enzyme.
Information regarding the physiological and molecular plant responses to the treatment with new biofertilizers is limited. In this study, a fast-composting soil amendment obtained from solid waste by ...means of a Fenton reaction was assessed to evaluate the effects on the growth of
L. var. longifolia seedlings. Growth rate, root biomass, chlorophyll concentration, and total soluble proteins of seedlings treated with the 2% fast-composting soil amendment showed significant increases in comparison with the control seedlings. Proteomic analysis revealed that the soil amendment induced the up-regulation of proteins belonging to photosynthesis machinery, carbohydrate metabolism, and promoted energy metabolism. Root proteomics indicated that the fast-composting soil amendment strongly induced the organs morphogenesis and development; root cap development, lateral root formation, and post-embryonic root morphogenesis were the main biological processes enriched by the treatment. Overall, our data suggest that the addition of the fast-composting soil amendment formulation to the base soils might ameliorate plant growth by inducing carbohydrate primary metabolism and the differentiation of a robust root system.
The purification of phycocyanin (PC) from
generally involves a combination of different techniques. Here, we report the results on PC yields from a combined aqueous extraction-ultrafiltration (UF) ...process of a strain of
cultivated in a farm devoted to producing PC with food-grade purity. Samples optimized from different biomass/solvent ratios were purified by using a polyethersulphone (PES) membrane with a molecular weight cut-off (MWCO) of 20 kDa. The UF system was operated at 2.0 ± 0.1 bar and at 24 ± 2 °C up to a volume concentration factor (VCF) of 5. A diafiltration (DF) process was conducted after UF in order to increase the PC recovery in the retentate. Samples were collected during both UF and DF processes in order to evaluate membrane productivity and PC purity. The average permeate fluxes of about 14.4 L/m
h were measured in the selected operating conditions and more than 96% of PC was rejected by the UF membrane independently ofthe extraction yields and times. The concentration of PC in the final retentate was 1.17 mg/mL; this confirmed the observed rejection and the final VCF of the process (about 5-fold when compared to the concentration of PC in the crude extract). In addition, the combination of UF and diafiltration allowed the removal of about 91.7% of the DNA from the crude extract, thereby improving the purity of the phycocyanin in the retentate fraction.
In terrestrial snails, thermal selection acts on shell coloration. However, the biological relevance of small differences in the intensity of shell pigmentation and the associated thermodynamic, ...physiological, and evolutionary consequences for snail diversity within the course of environmental warming are still insufficiently understood. To relate temperature‐driven internal heating, protein and membrane integrity impairment, escape behavior, place of residence selection, water loss, and mortality, we used experimentally warmed open‐top chambers and field observations with a total of >11,000 naturally or experimentally colored individuals of the highly polymorphic species Theba pisana (O.F. MÜLLER, 1774). We show that solar radiation in their natural Mediterranean habitat in Southern France poses intensifying thermal stress on increasingly pigmented snails that cannot be compensated for by behavioral responses. Individuals of all morphs acted neither jointly nor actively competed in climbing behavior, but acted similarly regardless of neighbor pigmentation intensity. Consequently, dark morphs progressively suffered from high internal temperatures, oxidative stress, and a breakdown of the chaperone system. Concomitant with increasing water loss, mortality increased with more intense pigmentation under simulated global warming conditions. In parallel with an increase in mean ambient temperature of 1.34°C over the past 30 years, the mortality rate of pigmented individuals in the field is, currently, about 50% higher than that of white morphs. A further increase of 1.12°C, as experimentally simulated in our study, would elevate this rate by another 26%. For 34 T. pisana populations from locations that are up to 2.7°C warmer than our experimental site, we show that both the frequency of pigmented morphs and overall pigmentation intensity decrease with an increase in average summer temperatures. We therefore predict a continuing strong decline in the frequency of pigmented morphs and a decrease in overall pigmentation intensity with ongoing global change in areas with strong solar radiation.
We simulated environmental warming for 1.12°C in the Mediterranean, and related temperature‐driven internal heating, protein and membrane integrity impairment, escape behavior, place of residence selection, water loss, and mortality in a total of >11,000 naturally or experimentally colored individuals of the highly polymorphic land snail species Theba pisana. These molecular and physiological responses lead to elevated mortality in naturally pigmented morphs by 26%. By comparing the situation in 35 Mediterranean T. pisana populations, we show that both the frequency of pigmented morphs and overall pigmentation intensity decrease with an increase in average summer temperatures.
Microplastics, an environmental contaminant, can directly harm aquatic organisms and alter the toxicity and availability of other pollutants. The herbicide glyphosate (N-(phosphonomethyl) glycine) ...exerts its toxicity by inhibiting 5-enol-pyruvyl-shikimate-3-phosphate synthase (EPSPS), a key enzyme belonging to shikimic acid pathway that leads to the biosynthesis of aromatic amino acids; tolerance, instead, is dependent on a glyphosate -resistant EPSPS. We tested the effects of 0,2mM glyphosate alone and in combination with 170 mg/mL polyethylene microplastics (MPs) on the expression of EPSPS and chorismate synthase (ChS) on a culture of the cyanobacterium Limnospira maxima. Glyphosate caused the highest mortality after one week, with the resistant population surviving thereafter.However, when the culture was exposed to the combined treatment the mortality decreased. Proteomic profiles of treated cultures demonstrated that both enzymes were accumulated during the 21 days glyphosate treatment, suggesting that the surviving population of L. maxima might express glyphosate-resistant target enzymes. Treatment with combined solution caused a decrease of EPSPS and ChS levels compared to those of glyphosate alone. Our results strongly suggest that microplastics mitigate the toxicity of glyphosate towards target enzymes of the shikimic acid pathway, thereby increasing the resistance capacity of the L. maxima strain.
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•Proteomics has coupled with morpho-physiology of drought sensitive and resistant parents to define the resistant traits of their progenies.•DAPs in leaf of parents and progeny F6, ...shed light on the inheritance of the molecular characters that lead to resistance.•The experimental design with proteomic approach might build a complimentary method for future marker-assisted selection of drought resistance.
Comparative physiological and proteomic analyses of two wheat cultivars Arg (resistant to drought), Arta (sensitive to drought) and four F6 lines (B1, B2, W1, W2) derived from their crossbreed lead us to discriminate the Arg, B1 and B2 lines to be resistant toward strong leaf water deficit. Proteins belonging to carbon metabolism, photosynthesis and detoxification/defense showed the major change. Tolerant Arg showed the accumulation of stress-responsive proteins under drought stress higher than in sensitive Arta. The high level of Cu/Zn superoxide dismutase, and two chloroplastic encoded enzymes indicate that their accumulation might improve stress resistance. Morphological and physiological traits of B1 and B2 confirmed that these lines are tolerant to drought stress. Proline and MDA contents are higher and lower, respectively, in these two lines than in other ones. This act synergistically with the modulation of primary metabolisms and protection against dehydration and oxidative damage resulting in the improvements of survival of the seedlings, greater vegetative vigor and productive capacity that also exceeds that of the tolerant Arg parental line. For all these evidences, the B1 and B2 progenies could be selected as the best lines in the future cultivation trials for wheat breeding under moderate and severe drought conditions.
We report a fine tuned procedure to obtain high proteins yield and quality from the marine plant Halophila stipulacea. Two tissue fixation methods have been applied; sampled plants were preserved in ...RNAlater or frozen in liquid nitrogen. Both fixed plants have been processed following three different protein extraction protocols; we used a protocol optimized in this work, reported as Procedure 1 in which very small amount of tissue were used for the extraction in trichloroacetic acid/water, followed by trichloroacetic acid/acetone. The second protocol, reported as Procedure 2, is the well-established protocol developed for P. oceanica; following this protocol, proteins have been extracted from fivefold tissue amount than Procedure 1, without the trichloroacetic acid/acetone step. In the Procedure 3 the reverse approach between sample fixation and extraction protocols used in the previous two procedures have been applied. The lowest yield of 2.49 ± 0.18 mg/g of tissue is obtained from RNAlater preserved plants processed with the Procedure 2, while the highest protein yield of 5.88 ± 0.22 mg/g is obtained from the RNAlater preserved plants processed with the Procedure 1. These last protein samples gave the best resolved profile of peptide bands in SDS-PAGE showing higher proteins purity than those in all the other samples. The gel-based proteomics approach by the uHPLC-µESI-MS/MS analyses and bioinformatics against a customized dataset of genomic and transcriptomic seagrass sequences have been performed. Hundreds of proteins were identified from the Procedure 1 samples; lesser protein identification was obtained from Procedure 2 samples and no significant identifications have been detected from Procedure 3 samples. Statistics of classes of proteins that were identified in each procedures were also reported.
Supplemental data for this article is available online at https://doi.org/10.1080/11263504.2021.2020355 .
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