The filamentous fungus Trichoderma harzianum, strain IMI 393899, was able to grow in the presence of the heavy metals cadmium and mercury. The main objective of this research was to study the molecular mechanisms underlying the tolerance of the fungus T. harzianum to cadmium.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFilamentous fungi are very promising organisms in both the control and the reduction of the amount of heavy metal released by human and industrial activities. In particular, Trichoderma harzianum demonstrated to be tolerant towards different heavy metals, such as mercury and cadmium, even though the mechanism underlying this tolerance is not fully understood. By using a particular strategy of the suppression subtractive hybridization technique, we were able to identify in the strain IMI 393899 of T.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTrichoderma harzianum is a very important fungus for the reduction of the amount of heavy metals resulting from agricultural and industrial activities. This filamentous fungus has been shown to be tolerant towards several heavy metals (e.g.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe health benefits associated with the consumption of anthocyanin-containing foods are extensively documented. Mature fruits of blood oranges and their hybrids are characterized by the presence of these bioactive pigments, the abundance of which can be enhanced by storing fruit at cooling nonfreezing temperature. In this work the effects of short low-temperature exposure (4 °C × 15 days) upon orange anthocyanin content and the expression of structural genes belonging to the pigment biosynthesis pathway were investigated.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe productivity and the geographical distribution of most commercially important Citrus varieties are markedly affected by environmental low temperatures. As gene engineering has been shown to be a favourable alternative to produce germplasm with improved cold tolerance, a broad group of cold regulated genes have been previously identified from several Citrus spp. By contrast, little information regarding the cold stress response of pigmented sweet orange varieties is available although they might provide a pivotal contribution to define the whole events occurring in cold exposed Citrus fruits.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFProtein thiols contribute significantly to antioxidant defence and selective oxidation of cysteines is important in signal transduction even in sub-stress scenarios. However, cysteine is the second rarest residue in proteins and it can be difficult to target low-abundance thiol (-SH)-containing proteins in proteomic separations. Activated thiol sepharose (ATS) allows covalent selection of -SH-containing proteins which can then be recovered by reduction with mercaptoethanol or dithiothreitol.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGlutathione S-transferases (GSTs) represent a multifunctional family of enzymes grouped into four main classes (tau, phi, theta, and zeta) conjugating endobiotic and xenobiotic compounds to glutathione. In plants, this is considered to be a crucial step in the detoxification process as the S-glutathionylated metabolites are tagged for vacuolar sequestration. In this work, we have isolated two glutathione S-transferases belonging to the tau class GSTs from sweet orange leaves.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe aim of this work was to study the impact of moderately long storage periods at 4 degrees C upon red orange [Citrus sinensis (L.) Osbeck] anthocyanins production and the expression of structural genes involved in their biosynthesis such as phehylalanine ammonia lyase (PAL), chalcone synthase (CHS), dihydroflavonol 4-reductase (DFR), and UDP-glucose flavonoid glucosyl transferase (UFGT). Our results showed that low temperature-induced anthocyanins accumulation in red orange juice vesicles after 75 days reached values eight times higher than those kept at 25 degrees C.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn this work we focused on the characterization of a novel plant rennet purified from lettuce leaves (Lactuca sativa L. cv Romana). The lettuce protease, lettucine, showed trypsin-like, SV8-like, and caseinolytic activities.
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