Molecular Detection of and at Different Stages of Wine Production.

and belong to acetic acid bacteria (AAB), associated with wine spoilage. The timely detection of AAB, thought essential for their control, is however challenging due to the difficulties of their isolation. Thus, it would be advantageous to detect them using molecular methods at all stages of winemaking and storage.

Assessing several fungal contaminants and their associated mycotoxins in maize cultivated on cornfields of Republic of Moldova.

Maize is an important crop for the Republic of Moldova and one of the crops most contaminated with mycotoxins. Maize grain obtained from plants cultivated on Moldavian cornfields in 2021 and 2022 were tested for mycotoxigenic risk using qPCR with primers to several fungal genome sequences engaged in mycotoxin synthesis and ELISA test to screen total aflatoxins, fumonisin B1, zearalenone, deoxynivalenol and T-2 toxin. Except for T-2 toxin, the mycotoxin concentrations were under the limits of detection and did not exceed maximum admissible levels for unprocessed grain.

bZIP17 regulates the expression of genes related to seed storage and germination, reducing seed susceptibility to osmotic stress.

Low temperatures, salinity, and drought cause significant crop losses. These conditions involve osmotic stress, triggering transcriptional remodeling, and consequently, the restitution of cellular homeostasis and growth recovery. Protein transcription factors regulate target genes, thereby mediating plant responses to stress.

The dynamic of the splicing of bZIP60 and the proteins encoded by the spliced and unspliced mRNAs reveals some unique features during the activation of UPR in Arabidopsis thaliana.

The unfolded protein response (UPR) is a signaling pathway that is activated when the workload of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is surpassed. IRE1 is a sensor involved in triggering the UPR and plays a key role in the unconventional splicing of an mRNA leading to the formation of a transcription factor that up-regulates the transcription of genes that play a role in restoring the homeostasis in the ER. In plants, bZIP60 is the substrate for IRE1; however, questions such as what is the dynamics of the splicing of bZIP60 and the fate of the proteins encoded by the spliced and unspliced forms of the mRNA, remain unanswered.

bZIP17 and bZIP60 Regulate the Expression of BiP3 and Other Salt Stress Responsive Genes in an UPR-Independent Manner in Arabidopsis thaliana.

Plants can be severely affected by salt stress. Since these are sessile organisms, they have developed different cellular responses to cope with this problem. Recently, it has been described that bZIP17 and bZIP60, two ER-located transcription factors, are involved in the cellular response to salt stress.

Growth habit determination by the balance of histone methylation activities in Arabidopsis.

In Arabidopsis, the rapid-flowering summer-annual versus the vernalization-requiring winter-annual growth habit is determined by natural variation in FRIGIDA (FRI) and FLOWERING LOCUS C (FLC). However, the biochemical basis of how FRI confers a winter-annual habit remains elusive. Here, we show that FRI elevates FLC expression by enhancement of histone methyltransferase (HMT) activity.

AUXIN RESPONSE FACTOR 2 (ARF2): a pleiotropic developmental regulator.

AUXIN RESPONSE FACTORS (ARFs) regulate auxin-mediated transcriptional activation/repression. They are encoded by a gene family in Arabidopsis, and each member is thought to play a central role in various auxin-mediated developmental processes. We have characterized three arf2 mutant alleles, arf2-6, arf2-7 and arf2-8.