Summary
Plants have evolved a repertoire of monitoring systems to sense plant morphogenesis and to face environmental changes and threats caused by different attackers. These systems integrate ...different signals into overreaching triggering pathways which coordinate developmental and defence‐associated responses. The plant cell wall, a dynamic and complex structure surrounding every plant cell, has emerged recently as an essential component of plant monitoring systems, thus expanding its function as a passive defensive barrier. Plants have a dedicated mechanism for maintaining cell wall integrity (CWI) which comprises a diverse set of plasma membrane‐resident sensors and pattern recognition receptors (PRRs). The PRRs perceive plant‐derived ligands, such as peptides or wall glycans, known as damage‐associated molecular patterns (DAMPs). These DAMPs function as ‘danger’ alert signals activating DAMP‐triggered immunity (DTI), which shares signalling components and responses with the immune pathways triggered by non‐self microbe‐associated molecular patterns that mediate disease resistance. Alteration of CWI by impairment of the expression or activity of proteins involved in cell wall biosynthesis and/or remodelling, as occurs in some plant cell wall mutants, or by wall damage due to colonization by pathogens/pests, activates specific defensive and growth responses. Our current understanding of how these alterations of CWI are perceived by the wall monitoring systems is scarce and few plant sensors/PRRs and DAMPs have been characterized. The identification of these CWI sensors and PRR–DAMP pairs will help us to understand the immune functions of the wall monitoring system, and might allow the breeding of crop varieties and the design of agricultural strategies that would enhance crop disease resistance.
Significance Statement
The plant cell wall has emerged as an essential component of plant stress‐monitoring systems, thus expanding its function as a passive defensive barrier. Here we review current knowledge about the systems that monitor plant cell wall integrity and their functions in triggering specific disease resistance and growth responses.
Schizophrenia has been associated with dysfunction in information integration/segregation dynamics. One of the neural networks whose role has been most investigated in schizophrenia is the default ...mode network (DMN). In this study, we have explored the possible alteration of integration and segregation dynamics in individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia with respect to healthy controls, based on the study of the topological properties of the graphs derived from the functional connectivity between the nodes of the DMN in the resting state. Our results indicate that the patients show a diminution of the modularity of the DMN and a higher global efficiency, in sparse graphs. Our data emphasise the interest in studying temporal changes in network measures and are compatible with the hypothesis of randomization of functional networks in schizophrenia.
Plant resistance to pathogens relies on a complex network of constitutive and inducible defensive barriers. The plant cell wall is one of the barriers that pathogens need to overcome to successfully ...colonize plant tissues. The traditional view of the plant cell wall as a passive barrier has evolved to a concept that considers the wall as a dynamic structure that regulates both constitutive and inducible defense mechanisms, and as a source of signaling molecules that trigger immune responses. The secondary cell walls of plants also represent a carbon-neutral feedstock (lignocellulosic biomass) for the production of biofuels and biomaterials. Therefore, engineering plants with improved secondary cell wall characteristics is an interesting strategy to ease the processing of lignocellulosic biomass in the biorefinery. However, modification of the integrity of the cell wall by impairment of proteins required for its biosynthesis or remodeling may impact the plants resistance to pathogens. This review summarizes our understanding of the role of the plant cell wall in pathogen resistance with a focus on the contribution of lignin to this biological process.
Focusing on the processes of political socialisation and democratisation that took place in Spain during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, this book brings together specialists who propose the ...need to rethink the contemporary history of democracy in Spain to build a new narrative. To do so, the authors go down to the local level, where they are able to trace a political culture that forged the foundations of a process of political ""modernization"" much more complex than what conventional historiography has conveyed, even though it was not always transferred institutionally to the national level. The idea of a rural Spain that was backward, apolitical, violent and unprepared for democracy gives way to a more interesting history which, while recognising the peculiarities of the country and the important limitations to democracy, shows examples that could help build a new narrative closer those of other neighbouring countries. Aimed at contemporary historians interested in Spain and Europe, the book also addresses the debates faced by other social scientists on the concept of democracy. This dialogue between history, sociology and political science is particularly present in a special final chapter featuring a discussion of democracy and its application to Spanish history.
•The most complex signals in EEG and HRV were found for Humour video clips.•The least complex signals in EEG and HRV were found for Fear video clips.•Vagally mediated HRV was higher for Humour and ...lower for Fear video clips.
In this study, we explored the fractal dimension (FD; a measure of signal complexity) of 28 EEG channels with positive and negative emotional states. The EEG of participants and their ECG were registered while watching short video clips that induced fear, disgust, humour, or neutral emotions. In order to better understand the nature of these emotions, the Higuchi FD of EEG segments and the heart rate variability (HRV) of the ECG associated with each emotion were obtained. Our results exhibited similar patterns of results with both measures. Humour elicited the highest FD scores in most EEG channels and the highest HRV, while fear, among all emotions, produced the lowest scores in both measures. These results may contribute to the understanding of the relationship between cortical and heart dynamics and their role on emotion perception.
In recent years, energy efficiency and thermal comfort in historic buildings have become high-interest topics among scholars. Research has demonstrated that retrofitting buildings to current energy ...efficiency and thermal comfort standards is essential for improving sustainability and energy performance and for maintaining built heritage of historic structures. This study is an extensive overview of the literature surrounding this topic. This paper summarizes the different methods and techniques that have been used around the world to achieve performance refurbishments. Articles are organized based on the different building types used as case studies (residential, religious, academic and palace, museums, libraries and theaters, urban areas, and others). The results reveal that residential, religious and museum building types, especially from the last two centuries, have been most often used as case studies. Moreover, Europe, particularly Italy, is leading the research. The aim of this note is to demonstrate the feasibility of maintaining built heritage values of historic buildings while achieving significant improvements in their energy efficiency and thermal comfort.
► Hydrology effects of experimental thinning in a dense Aleppo pine plantation were examined. ► Thinning intensity treatments (low, moderate and high) have been established. ► Throughfall and ...stemflow were both modified after thinning. Low intensity thinning did not have a significant effect. ► Models were developed to allow foresters to easily implement a “hydrology-oriented silviculture”.
Rainfall interception by the forest cover causes an important reduction in bulk rainfall in semiarid climates, such as the Mediterranean. Unmanaged, dense pine stands in this area are expected to have an important impact on water resources. This paper studies the effect of forest management on the partitioning of rainfall into throughfall and stemflow in an Aleppo pine plantation in eastern Spain. Three thinning-intensity treatments were compared with unmanaged stands that served as the control. The results revealed a very low throughfall in the control treatments during the study period of 55.9%, whereas throughfall increased significantly after thinning to 83.8%, 67.7% and 61.3% of the bulk rainfall for high-, moderate- and low-intensity treatments, respectively. Total throughfall was negatively and linearly related to the tree density, forest cover, basal area and leaf area index. In contrast, weekly throughfall was modelled by considering these variables together with bulk rainfall in a multiple exponential expression; the weekly throughfall R2 values (corrected Pearson coefficient) were above 0.9. These models would facilitate the implementation of hydrology-oriented silviculture via a more accurate prediction of the impacts of thinning on throughfall in this type of forest.
Plant growth and response to environmental cues are largely governed by phytohormones. The plant hormones ethylene, jasmonic acid, and salicylic acid (SA) play a central role in the regulation of ...plant immune responses. In addition, other plant hormones, such as auxins, abscisic acid (ABA), cytokinins, gibberellins, and brassinosteroids, that have been thoroughly described to regulate plant development and growth, have recently emerged as key regulators of plant immunity. Plant hormones interact in complex networks to balance the response to developmental and environmental cues and thus limiting defense-associated fitness costs. The molecular mechanisms that govern these hormonal networks are largely unknown. Moreover, hormone signaling pathways are targeted by pathogens to disturb and evade plant defense responses. In this review, we address novel insights on the regulatory roles of the ABA, SA, and auxin in plant resistance to pathogens and we describe the complex interactions among their signal transduction pathways. The strategies developed by pathogens to evade hormone-mediated defensive responses are also described. Based on these data we discuss how hormone signaling could be manipulated to improve the resistance of crops to pathogens.
Ageing is a multifactorial degenerative process which causes a decrease in the cellular capacity for repair and adaptation to external stressors. In this way, it is important to maintain the proper ...balance of the proteome. Heat shock proteins (HSP) will intervene in this balance, which are responsible for the correct assembly, folding and translocation of other proteins when cells are subjected to stressors. This type of protein is overexpressed in human tumor cells, while its deficit, both in function and quantity, contributes to ageing processes. The present work aims to analyze the response of cells from studies carried out in normal and tumor cells that are subjected to stressors.
A PubMed search was performed using the keywords “cell ageing, cell longevity, resistance, HSP, heat shock proteins, thermal shock proteins”. This search generated 212 articles. Subsequently, a series of inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied to select the articles of interest to be evaluated. Normal cells subjected to external stressors at low doses increase the number of HSP, causing them to become more resistant. In addition, tumor cells expressing high levels of HSP show greater resistance to treatment and increased cell replication. HSP intervene in the cellular resistance of both normal and tumor cells.
In the case of normal cells, the increase in HSP levels makes them respond effectively to an external stressor, increasing their resistance and not causing cell death. In the case of tumor cells, there is an increase in resistance to treatment.
•The deficit of heat shock proteins contributes to ageing processes.•Stressors-exposed normal cells induce resistance by heat shock proteins expression.•Heat shock proteins increase resistance without causing cell death in normal cells.•Heat shock proteins increase resistance to treatment in tumor cells.•Tumor cells express high levels of heat shock proteins showing treatment resistance.
Schizophrenia (SZ) is a complex disorder characterized by a range of symptoms and behaviors that have significant consequences for individuals, families, and society in general. ...Electroencephalography (EEG) is a valuable tool for understanding the neural dynamics and functional abnormalities associated with schizophrenia. Research studies utilizing EEG have identified specific patterns of brain activity in individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia that may reflect disturbances in neural synchronization and information processing in cortical circuits. Considering the temporal dynamics of functional connectivity provides a more comprehensive understanding of brain networks’ organization and how they change during different cognitive states. This temporal perspective would enhance our understanding of the underlying mechanisms of schizophrenia. In the present study, we will use measures based on graph theory to obtain dynamic and static indicators in order to evaluate differences in the functional connectivity of individuals diagnosed with SZ and healthy controls using an ecologically valid task. At the static level, patients showed alterations in their ability to segregate information, particularly in the default mode network (DMN). As for dynamic measures, patients showed reduced values in most metrics (segregation, integration, centrality, and resilience), reflecting a reduced number of dynamic states of brain networks. Our results show the utility of combining static and dynamic indicators of functional connectivity from EEG sensors.
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