Publications by authors named "Margherita Limonta"

Fast and uniform germination is key to agricultural production and can be achieved by seed 'priming' techniques. Here, we characterised the responses of bread wheat ( L.) seeds to a hot steam treatment ('BioFlash'), which accelerated water uptake, resulting in faster germination and seedling growth, typical traits of primed seed.

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The tripeptide antioxidant glutathione (γ-l-glutamyl-l-cysteinyl-glycine; GSH) essentially contributes to thiol-disulphide conversions, which are involved in the control of seed development, germination, and seedling establishment. However, the relative contribution of GSH metabolism in different seed structures is not fully understood. We studied the GSH/glutathione disulphide (GSSG) redox couple and associated low-molecular-weight (LMW) thiols and disulphides related to GSH metabolism in bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.

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Evaluation and characterization are crucial steps in the exploitation of germplasm collections. The Sant'Angelo Lodigiano unit of the Consiglio per la ricerca in agricoltura e l'analisi dell'economia agraria (CREA) maintains a broad collection of Triticum spp, including more than 4000 genotypes of T. aestivum.

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Plant auto-inhibited Ca²⁺-ATPases (ACA) are crucial in defining the shape of calcium transients and therefore in eliciting plant responses to various stimuli. Arabidopsis thaliana genome encodes ten ACA isoforms that can be divided into four clusters based on gene structure and sequence homology. While isoforms from clusters 1, 2 and 4 have been characterized, virtually nothing is known about members of cluster 3 (ACA12 and ACA13).

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ACA8 is a plasma membrane-localized isoform of calmodulin (CaM)-regulated Ca(2+)-ATPase of Arabidopsis thaliana. Several phosphopeptides corresponding to portions of the regulatory N-terminus of ACA8 have been identified in phospho-proteomic studies. To mimic phosphorylation of the ACA8 N-terminus, each of the serines found to be phosphorylated in those studies (Ser19, Ser22, Ser27, Ser29, Ser57, and Ser99) has been mutated to aspartate.

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