is an endophytic root symbiont fungus that enhances the growth of various plants under different stress conditions, including salinity. Here, the functional characterization of two fungal Na/H antiporters, SiNHA1 and SiNHX1 has been carried out to study their putative role in saline tolerance. Although their gene expression does not respond specifically to saline conditions, they could contribute, together with the previously characterized Na efflux systems SiENA1 and SiENA5, to relieve Na from the cytosol under this stressed condition.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFollowing pathogen infection, plants have developed diverse mechanisms that direct their immune systems towards more robust induction of defense responses against recurrent environmental stresses. The induced resistances could be inherited by the progenies, rendering them more tolerant to stressful events. Although within-generational induction of tolerance to abiotic stress is a well-documented phenomenon in virus-infected plants, the transgenerational inheritance of tolerance to abiotic stresses in their progenies has not been explored.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPlants are concurrently exposed to biotic and abiotic stresses, including infection by viruses and drought. Combined stresses result in plant responses that are different from those observed for each individual stress. We investigated compensatory effects induced by virus infection on the fitness of hosts grown under water deficit, and the hypothesis that water deficit improves tolerance, estimated as reproductive fitness, to virus infection.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFExogenous application of double-stranded RNAs (dsRNAs) for inducing virus resistance in plants represents an attractive alternative to transgene-based silencing approaches. However, improvement of dsRNA stability in natural conditions is required in order to provide long-term protection against the targeted virus. Here, we tested the protective effect of topical application of -encapsulated dsRNA compared to naked dsRNA against single and dual infection by expressing the green fluorescent protein (PVX-GFP) and Potato virus Y (PVY) in .
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