Publications by authors named "P Castanera"

Intracellular bacterial pathogens pose significant public health challenges due to their ability to evade immune defenses and conventional antibiotics. Drug repurposing has recently been explored as a strategy to discover new therapeutic uses for established drugs to combat these infections. Utilizing high-throughput screening, bioinformatics, and systems biology, several existing drugs have been identified with potential efficacy against intracellular bacteria.

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Background: Sesamia nonagrioides is an important maize pest in the Mediterranean basin that is effectively controlled by Cry1Ab-expressing maize (Bt maize). The continued cultivation of Bt maize in Spain exerts high selection pressure on the target pests, which could lead to the development of resistance. Provision of refuges of non-Bt plants is an essential component in the high-dose/refuge (HDR) strategy to delay resistance evolution.

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Spinosad is an insecticide widely used for the control of insect pest species, including Mediterranean fruit fly, Ceratitis capitata. Its target site is the α6 subunit of the nicotinic acetylcholine receptors, and different mutations in this subunit confer resistance to spinosad in diverse insect species. The insect α6 gene contains 12 exons, with mutually exclusive versions of exons 3 (3a, 3b) and 8 (8a, 8b, 8c).

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Climate change is expected to increase drought periods and the performance and dispersal of some invasive species such as , which has been reported to take advantage of the nutritional changes induced by water-shortage on the tomato cultivar Moneymaker (MM). We have examined the implications for mite's biology of four accessions of the drought-adapted tomatoes, "Tomàtiga de Ramellet" (TR), under moderate drought stress. Mite performance was enhanced by drought in two accessions (TR61 and TR154), but not in the other two accessions (TR58 and TR126).

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