34 results match your criteria: "Institute for Agricultural and Nutritional Sciences[Affiliation]"

The galactose metabolism genes UGE1 and UGM1 are novel virulence factors of the maize anthracnose fungus Colletotrichum graminicola.

Mol Microbiol

May 2024

Faculty of Natural Sciences III, Institute for Agricultural and Nutritional Sciences, Phytopathology and Plant Protection, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

Article Synopsis
  • - Fungal cell walls are crucial for interacting with hosts and influencing the development of plant diseases, but the functions of certain galactose-containing polymers in plant pathogenic fungi remain unclear.
  • - Researchers identified important genes (UGE1 and UGM1) in the maize pathogen Colletotrichum graminicola that are vital for the synthesis of key galactose polymers, with UGE1 affecting both types and UGM1 specifically linked to fungal-type galactomannan.
  • - Mutations in these genes resulted in impaired synthesis of essential cell wall components and reduced disease severity in maize, indicating that UGE1 and UGM1 are important factors for the pathogen's virulence.
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Colletotrichum graminicola, the causal agent of maize leaf anthracnose and stalk rot, differentiates a pressurized infection cell called an appressorium in order to invade the epidermal cell, and subsequently forms biotrophic and necrotrophic hyphae to colonize the host tissue. While the role of force in appressorial penetration is established (Bechinger et al., 1999), the involvement of cell wall-degrading enzymes (CWDEs) in this process and in tissue colonization is poorly understood, due to the enormous number and functional redundancy of these enzymes.

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Natural Urease Inhibitors Reduce the Severity of Disease Symptoms, Dependent on the Lifestyle of the Pathogens.

J Fungi (Basel)

June 2023

Chair for Phytopathology and Plant Protection, Institute for Agricultural and Nutritional Sciences, Faculty of Natural Sciences III, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Betty-Heimann-Str. 3, D-06120 Halle (Saale), Germany.

The development of new anti-ureolytic compounds is of great interest due to the newly discovered role of urease inhibitors in crop protection. Purine degradation and the generation of ammonium by urease are required for the full virulence of biotrophic and hemibiotrophic fungal plant pathogens. Accordingly, chemicals displaying urease inhibitor activity may be used as a novel class of fungicides.

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Nutritional Assessment of Ready-to-Eat Salads in German Supermarkets: Comparison of the nutriRECIPE-Index and the Nutri-Score.

Foods

December 2022

Competence Cluster for Nutrition and Cardiovascular Health (nutriCARD) Halle-Jena-Leipzig, 07743 Jena, Germany.

Globally, an unbalanced diet causes more deaths than any other factor. Due to a lack of knowledge, it is difficult for consumers to select healthy foods at the point of sale. Although different front-of-pack labeling schemes exist, their informative value is limited due to small sets of considered parameters and lacking information on ingredient composition.

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A new partititvirus isolated from a strain (T673), collected in China, was characterized and annotated as Trichoderma harzianum partitivirus 2 (ThPV2). The genome of ThPV2 consists of a 1693 bp dsRNA1 encoding a putative RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) and a 1458 bp dsRNA2 encoding a hypothetical protein. In comparative studies employing the ThPV2-infected strain (T673) and a strain cured by ribavirin treatment (virus-free strain T673-F), we investigated biological effects of ThPV2 infection.

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(WDV) is transmitted by the leafhopper As a major pathogen in wheat and other cereals, WDV causes high yield losses in many European countries. Due to climate change, insect-transmitted viruses will become more important and the restrictions in the use of insecticides efficient against renders growing of WDV resistant/tolerant varieties the only effective strategy to control WDV. So far, there is little information about the possible sources of resistance and no known information about the genome regions responsible for the resistance.

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Fungal Pathogenesis-Related Cell Wall Biogenesis, with Emphasis on the Maize Anthracnose Fungus .

Plants (Basel)

March 2022

Chair for Phytopathology and Plant Protection, Institute for Agricultural and Nutritional Sciences, Faculty of Natural Sciences III, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Betty-Heimann-Str. 3, D-06120 Halle (Saale), Germany.

The genus harbors many plant pathogenic species, several of which cause significant yield losses in the field and post harvest. Typically, in order to infect their host plants, spores germinate, differentiate a pressurized infection cell, and display a hemibiotrophic lifestyle after plant invasion. Several factors required for virulence or pathogenicity have been identified in different species, and adaptation of cell wall biogenesis to distinct stages of pathogenesis has been identified as a major pre-requisite for the establishment of a compatible parasitic fungus-plant interaction.

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Background: Our objective was to develop a nutrient-based index for evaluating and improving menus in public catering. The nutriRECIPE-Index comprises 24 nutrients and nutrient groups. In developing the index, the following steps were included: setting the goals of the index, nutrient selection, target metrics and scaling, weighting, proof of concept and validation of the index.

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Scientific evidence suggests that a vegan diet might be associated with impaired bone health. Therefore, a cross-sectional study ( = 36 vegans, = 36 omnivores) was used to investigate the associations of veganism with calcaneal quantitative ultrasound (QUS) measurements, along with the investigation of differences in the concentrations of nutrition- and bone-related biomarkers between vegans and omnivores. This study revealed lower levels in the QUS parameters in vegans compared to omnivores, e.

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The effects of a training program using a phantom to accustom heifers to the automatic milking system.

J Dairy Sci

January 2021

Institute of Physiological Chemistry, Veterinary Faculty, Leipzig University, 04103 Leipzig, Germany. Electronic address:

The introduction of heifers into the automatic milking system (AMS) can be associated with considerable stress for both animals and farm employees, as completely inexperienced heifers initially do not independently enter the unknown milking robot. This study investigated whether training heifers on an AMS phantom provides the possibility of preparing heifers for the following lactation at the AMS. For this purpose, 77 Holstein-Friesian heifers were randomly assigned to one of 2 experimental groups: control (CON) or phantom (PHAN).

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Molecular Characterization of the Purine Degradation Pathway Genes and of the Maize Anthracnose Fungus Identified Urease as a Novel Target for Plant Disease Control.

Phytopathology

September 2020

Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Faculty of Natural Sciences III, Institute for Agricultural and Nutritional Sciences, Chair for Phytopathology and Plant Protection, Betty-Heimann-Str. 3; D-06120 Halle (Saale), Germany.

Fungal pathogenicity is governed by environmental factors, with nitrogen playing a key role in triggering pathogenic development. Spores germinating on the plant cuticle are exposed to a nitrogen-free environment, and reprograming of nitrogen metabolism is required for bridging the time needed to gain access to the nitrogen sources of the host. Although degradation of endogenous purine bases efficiently generates ammonium and may allow the fungus to bridge the preinvasion nitrogen gap, the roles of the purine degradation pathway and of the key genes encoding allantoicase and urease are largely unknown in plant pathogenic fungi.

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Not necessarily all cells of an organism contain the same genome. Some eukaryotes exhibit dramatic differences between cells of different organs, resulting from programmed elimination of chromosomes or their fragments. Here, we present a detailed analysis of programmed B chromosome elimination in plants.

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the aim of this study was to test whether a single testicular needle biopsy could provide histological results comparable to en bloc resection histology and whether one biopsy was sufficient to reflect the histology of an entire pair of testicles. Two methods of sample collection were tested on 32 bull calves aged five to eight months to compare histological parameters of needle biopsy with those of en bloc resection samples. One testicular needle biopsy of the right and three en bloc samples of both testicles were collected and compared for the number of tubular cross sections, tubules with elongated spermatids (ES), outer/inner diameter of tubules, thickness of tubular wall, and number of Sertoli cells (SC).

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Evidence is accumulating that vitamin D may have beneficial effects on respiratory tract, autoimmune, neuro-degenerative, and mental diseases. The present umbrella review of systematic reviews (SRs) of cohort studies and randomised controlled trials (RCTs), plus single Mendelian randomisation studies aims to update current knowledge on the potential role of vitamin D in preventing and treating these extraskeletal diseases. Altogether, 73 SRs were identified.

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Kmasker plants - a tool for assessing complex sequence space in plant species.

Plant J

May 2020

Department of Natural Sciences III, Institute for Agricultural and Nutritional Sciences, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, 06120, Halle, Germany.

Many plant genomes display high levels of repetitive sequences. The assembly of these complex genomes using short high-throughput sequence reads is still a challenging task. Underestimation or disregard of repeat complexity in these datasets can easily misguide downstream analysis.

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Article Synopsis
  • Cancer and other noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) pose a significant threat to global development, with slow progress in addressing these issues highlighted by the recent UN meeting; key barriers include a lack of situational analyses and prioritization for effective action against NCDs.* -
  • The study aims to provide comprehensive data on cancer burden across 29 cancer types in 195 countries from 1990 to 2017, utilizing the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) methods to analyze cancer incidence, mortality, and disability metrics.* -
  • In 2017, there were 24.5 million new cancer cases globally, with significant variations based on socio-demographic factors; the majority of cancer-related disabilities stemmed
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Specialized infection strategies of falcate and oval conidia of Colletotrichum graminicola.

Fungal Genet Biol

December 2019

Department of Genetics of Eukaryotic Microorganisms, Institute of Microbiology and Genetics, Georg August University Göttingen, Grisebachstrasse 8, DE-37081 Göttingen, Germany.

For many filamentous fungi with pathogenic lifestyles, the presence of distinct asexual conidia has been described. However, the role of these spore types remains mostly obscure. Colletotrichum graminicola is a hemibiotrophic filamentous fungus, causing anthracnose on maize plants with a high potential of epidemic disease spreading.

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The Kulunda Steppe in southwestern Siberia is one of the most intensely used agricultural landscapes in the world. Today it is characterized by depletive soil management practices and intensities that are unadapted to the local site conditions. Severe soil degradation and a loss of soil organic carbon (SOC) occurs at agriculturally used areas.

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Pelleted feeds (PF) are popular in horse nutrition because of high palatability and improved feeding hygiene, but ingestion is faster for PF than for cereals or muesli feed. The aim of the study was to evaluate whether variable amounts of two PFs produced with different physical properties from the same batch of feed can affect feed intake patterns in horses. Chewing patterns were measured in six warmblood mares (519 ± 36.

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A growing world population requires an increase in the quality and quantity of food production. However, field losses due to biotic stresses are currently estimated to be between 10 and 20% worldwide. The risk of resistance and strict pesticide legislation necessitate innovative agronomical practices to adequately protect crops in the future, such as the identification of new substances with novel modes of action.

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This study was performed to highlight the relationship between single dietary risk factors and cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) in the WHO European Region. We used the comparative risk assessment framework of the Global Burden of Disease Study to estimate CVD mortality attributable to diet; comprising eleven forms of CVDs, twelve food and nutrient groups and 27 risk-outcome pairs in four GBD regions including 51 countries by age and sex between 1990 and 2016. In 2016, dietary risks were associated with 2.

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A multitude of indices measure the healthiness of dietary patterns. Because validation results with respect to health outcomes do not sufficiently facilitate the choice of a specific dietary quality index, the decision of which index to use for a particular research objective should be based on other criteria. This review aims to provide guidance on which criteria to focus upon when choosing a dietary index for a specific research question.

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Importance: Liver cancer is among the leading causes of cancer deaths globally. The most common causes for liver cancer include hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection and alcohol use.

Objective: To report results of the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) 2015 study on primary liver cancer incidence, mortality, and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) for 195 countries or territories from 1990 to 2015, and present global, regional, and national estimates on the burden of liver cancer attributable to HBV, HCV, alcohol, and an “other” group that encompasses residual causes.

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Aim: We aimed to quantify the smoking-attributable burden of periodontal disease (PD).

Methods: The association between smoking and PD was evaluated. Population, smoking and PD data from the Global Burden of Disease Study were used, and the burden in different sex and age groups in 186 countries in 2015 calculated, adjusted for PD prevalence and numbers of cigarettes smoked.

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