We present a weeklong curricular module for high school biology students that promotes knowledge of phytohormones, the circadian clock, and the Central Dogma. The module, which relies on easily accessible items and requires minimal space, integrates a hands-on experiment that guides students through replicating research examining circadian entrainment in postharvest cabbage from groceries. This work found that plants have cyclical, circadian expression of genes that produce phytohormones, and that such cyclical expression influences herbivory by caterpillars.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTo enhance food security, food safety, and environmental health, a bio-based integrated pest management (BIPM) strategy was evaluated at two coastal locations in Lebanon as an alternative to toxic pesticide sprays in commercial high-arched plastic tunnels common in many countries. The evaluation occurred during two cucumber and pepper cropping seasons: spring and fall. At each site, two commercial tunnels were used; farmers' conventional practices were applied in one tunnel, while the BIPM approach was followed in the second tunnel.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe discovery of novel therapeutic compounds through de novo drug design represents a critical challenge in the field of pharmaceutical research. Traditional drug discovery approaches are often resource intensive and time consuming, leading researchers to explore innovative methods that harness the power of deep learning and reinforcement learning techniques. Here, we introduce a novel drug design approach called drugAI that leverages the Encoder-Decoder Transformer architecture in tandem with Reinforcement Learning via a Monte Carlo Tree Search (RL-MCTS) to expedite the process of drug discovery while ensuring the production of valid small molecules with drug-like characteristics and strong binding affinities towards their targets.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSunflowers are famous for their ability to track the sun throughout the day and then reorient at night to face east the following morning. This occurs by differential growth patterns, with the east sides of stems growing more during the day and the west sides of stems growing more at night. This process, termed heliotropism, is generally believed to be a specialized form of phototropism; however, the underlying mechanism is unknown.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe NLR (nucleotide-binding leucine-rich repeat) class immune receptor confers resistance to (TSWV). Although is known to activate immunity upon recognition of the TSWV movement protein NSm, we know very little about the downstream events that lead to resistance. Here, we investigated the -mediated early transcriptomic changes that occur in response to mechanical and thrips-mediated inoculation of TSWV, using near-isogenic tomato lines CNPH-LAM 147 () and Santa Clara ().
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe rapid spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) resulted in serious health, social, and economic consequences. While the development of effective vaccines substantially reduced the severity of symptoms and the associated deaths, we still urgently need effective drugs to further reduce the number of casualties associated with SARS-CoV-2 infections. Machine learning methods both improved and sped up all the different stages of the drug discovery processes by performing complex analyses with enormous datasets.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMicrobial symbionts range from mutualistic to commensal to antagonistic. While these roles are distinct in their outcome, they are also fluid in a changing environment. Here, we used the - symbiosis to investigate short-term and long-term shifts in population abundance using an effective, fast, and low-cost tracking methodology for .
View Article and Find Full Text PDF(commonly known as chia) is gaining popularity worldwide as a healthy food supplement due to its low saturated fatty acid and high polyunsaturated fatty acid content, in addition to being rich in protein, fiber, and antioxidants. Chia leaves contain plethora of secondary metabolites with medicinal properties. In this study, we sequenced chia leaf and root transcriptomes using the Illumina platform.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe potato aphid, Macrosiphum euphorbiae, is an important agricultural pest that causes economic losses to potato and tomato production. To establish the transcriptome for this aphid, RNA-Seq libraries constructed from aphids maintained on tomato plants were used in Illumina sequencing generating 52.6 million 75-105 bp paired-end reads.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFYoung sunflower plants track the Sun from east to west during the day and then reorient during the night to face east in anticipation of dawn. In contrast, mature plants cease movement with their flower heads facing east. We show that circadian regulation of directional growth pathways accounts for both phenomena and leads to increased vegetative biomass and enhanced pollinator visits to flowers.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe survival and reproduction of plants depend on their ability to cope with a wide range of daily and seasonal environmental fluctuations during their life cycle. Phytohormones are plant growth regulators that are involved in almost every aspect of growth and development as well as plant adaptation to myriad abiotic and biotic conditions. The circadian clock, an endogenous and cell-autonomous biological timekeeper that produces rhythmic outputs with close to 24-h rhythms, provides an adaptive advantage by synchronizing plant physiological and metabolic processes to the external environment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAphids deliver saliva into plants and acquire plant sap for their nourishment using a specialized mouthpart or stylets. Aphid saliva is of great importance because it contains effectors that are involved in modulating host defense and metabolism. Although profiling aphid salivary glands and identifying secreted proteins have been successfully used, success in direct profiling of aphid saliva have been limited due to scarcity of saliva collected in artificial diets.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMicroRNAs (miRNAs) suppress the transcriptional and post-transcriptional expression of genes in plants. Several miRNA families target genes encoding nucleotide-binding site-leucine-rich repeat (NB-LRR) plant innate immune receptors. The fungus Fusarium oxysporum f.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAphids are sap-feeding plant pests and harbor the endosymbiont Buchnera aphidicola, which is essential for their fecundity and survival. During plant penetration and feeding, aphids secrete saliva that contains proteins predicted to alter plant defenses and metabolism. Plants recognize microbe-associated molecular patterns and induce pattern-triggered immunity (PTI).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe interactions between aphids and their host plants seem to be analogous to those of plant-microbial pathogens. Unlike microbial pathogen effectors, little is known about aphid effectors and their ability to interfere with host immunity. To date, only three functional aphid effectors have been reported.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSecond-generation DNA sequencing platforms have emerged as powerful tools in biological research. Their high sequence output at lower cost and minimal input DNA requirement render them suitable for broad applications ranging from gene expression studies to personalized clinical diagnostics. Here, we describe the preparation of cDNA libraries, from both whole aphid insects and their microscopic salivary gland tissues, suitable for high-throughput DNA sequencing on the Illumina platform.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRoot-knot nematodes (genus Meloidogyne) are obligate plant parasites. They are extremely polyphagous and considered one of the most economically important plant parasitic nematodes. The microscopic second-stage juvenile (J2), molted once in the egg, is the infective stage.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPlant resistance (R) gene-mediated defense responses against biotic stresses include vast transcriptional reprogramming. In several plant-pathogen systems, members of the WRKY family of transcription factors have been demonstrated to act as both positive and negative regulators of plant defense transcriptional networks. To identify the possible roles of tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) WRKY transcription factors in defense mediated by the R gene Mi-1 against potato aphid, Macrosiphum euphorbiae, and root-knot nematode (RKN), Meloidogyne javanica, we used tobacco rattle virus (TRV)-based virus-induced gene silencing and transcriptionally suppressed SlWRKY70, a tomato ortholog of the Arabidopsis thaliana WRKY70 gene.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe plant receptor-like kinase somatic embryogenesis receptor kinase 3 (SERK3)/brassinosteroid insensitive 1-associated kinase 1 (BAK1) is required for pathogen-associated molecular pattern (PAMP)-triggered immunity (PTI). Here we show that a distinct member of the SERK family, SERK1, is required for the full functioning of Mi-1, a nucleotide binding leucine-rich repeat (NB-LRR) resistance protein. Mi-1 confers resistance to Meloidogyne spp.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWRKY transcription factors play a central role in transcriptional reprogramming associated with plant immune responses. However, due to functional redundancy, typically the contribution of individual members of this family to immunity is only subtle. Using microarray analysis, we found that the paralogous tomato WRKY genes SlWRKY72a and b are transcriptionally up-regulated during disease resistance mediated by the R gene Mi-1.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Recent genomic analyses of arthropod defense mechanisms suggest conservation of key elements underlying responses to pathogens, parasites and stresses. At the center of pathogen-induced immune responses are signaling pathways triggered by the recognition of fungal, bacterial and viral signatures. These pathways result in the production of response molecules, such as antimicrobial peptides and lysozymes, which degrade or destroy invaders.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFusarium vascular wilt, caused by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. lycopersici, affects tomatoes worldwide.
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