Younger Researchers of the Brazilian Chemical Society: a network fostering representation, communication, and collaboration.

The Younger Researchers of the Brazilian Chemical Society committee supports early career researchers promoting communication, collaboration, education, networking, representation, and career development.

Effect of long-term storage on glucosinolate and S-methyl-l-cysteine sulfoxide hydrolysis in cabbage (Brassica oleracea var. capitata).

Cabbages are good sources for glucosinolates and S-methyl-l-cysteine sulfoxide (SMCSO), precursors to bioactive volatile hydrolysis products such as isothiocyanates, sulfides and thiosulfinates. Often, white and red cabbages are stored at 0 °C for many months before being sold. Here, we investigated the effect of storage for up to eight months on glucosinolates, SMCSO and the formation of isothiocyanates and derived amines, (epithio)nitriles and volatile organosulfur compounds (VOSCs) in white and red cabbages.

The Combined Applications of Microbial Inoculants and Organic Fertilizer Improve Plant Growth under Unfavorable Soil Conditions.

The performance of two bio-inoculants either in single or in combined applications with organic fertilizer was tested to determine their effect on plant growth and yield under normal and unfavorable field conditions such as low pH value and low content of P. Arbuscular Mycorrhiza Fungi (AMF; three species of ) and the plant-growth-promoting bacterial strain were applied to barley in a two-year field experiment with different soil pH levels and available nutrients. Grain yield; contents of P, N, K, and Mg; and soil microbial parameters were measured.

Glucosinolate Accumulation and Hydrolysis in Leafy Vegetables Are Influenced by Leaf Age.

The health-beneficial effects of vegetables are mainly attributed to their high contents of glucosinolates and the products of their hydrolysis, especially isothiocyanates. Distribution of glucosinolates across plant organs can strongly vary. Here, we investigated the effect of leaf age on glucosinolate accumulation and hydrolysis in two leafy vegetables, pak choi and giant red mustard.

Impact of dark septate endophytes on salt stress alleviation of tomato plants.

Fungal endophytes can improve plant tolerance to abiotic stress conditions. Dark septate endophytes (DSEs) belong to phylogenetically non-related groups of root colonizing fungi among the Ascomycota with high melanin-producing activities. They can be isolated from roots of more than 600 plant species in diverse ecosystems.

Oxidative Stress Is a Concept, Not an Indication for Selective Antioxidant Treatment.

The steady-state redox status is physiologically important and therefore homeostatically maintained. Changes in the status result in signaling (eustress) or oxidative damage (distress). Oxidative stress (OS) is a hard-to-quantitate term that can be estimated only based on different biomarkers.

Inter-laboratory comparison of plant volatile analyses in the light of intra-specific chemodiversity.

Introduction: Assessing intraspecific variation in plant volatile organic compounds (VOCs) involves pitfalls that may bias biological interpretation, particularly when several laboratories collaborate on joint projects. Comparative, inter-laboratory ring trials can inform on the reproducibility of such analyses.

Objectives: In a ring trial involving five laboratories, we investigated the reproducibility of VOC collections with polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) and analyses by thermal desorption-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (TD-GC-MS).

The effect of LED light quality on the carotenoid metabolism and related gene expression in the genus Brassica.

Background: New vegetable production systems, such as vertical farming, but also well-established in-door production methods led to the implementation of light emitting diodes (LEDs). LEDs are the most important light sources in modern indoor-production systems and offer the possibility for enhancing growth and specific metabolites in planta. Even though the number of studies investigating the effects of LED lighting on vegetable quality has increased, the knowledge about genus variability is limited.

The interaction of salinity and light regime modulates photosynthetic pigment content in edible halophytes in greenhouse and indoor farming.

Given its limited land and water use and the changing climate conditions, indoor farming of halophytes has a high potential to contribute significantly to global agriculture in the future. Notably, indoor farming and classical greenhouse cultivation differ in their light regime between artificial and solar lighting, which can influence plant metabolism, but how this affects the cultivation of halophytes has not yet been investigated. To address this question, we studied the yield and content of abscisic acid, carotenoids, and chlorophylls as well as chloride of three halophyte species (, , and ) differing in their salt tolerance mechanisms and following four salt treatments (no salt to 600 mM of NaCl) in two light regimes (greenhouse/indoor farming).

Novel method to recover Salmonella enterica cells for Tn-Seq approaches from lettuce leaves and agricultural environments using combination of sonication, filtration, and dialysis membrane.

Salmonella enterica in agricultural environments has become an important concern, due to its potential transmission to humans and the associated public health risks. To identify genes contributing to Salmonella adaptation to such environments, transposon sequencing has been used in recent years. However, isolating Salmonella from atypical hosts, such as plant leaves, can pose technical challenges due to low bacterial content and the difficulty to separate an adequate number of bacteria from host tissues.

Evaluation of Modern Approaches for the Assessment of Dietary Carotenoids as Markers for Fruit and Vegetable Consumption.

The assessment of dietary carotenoids via blood measurements has been widely used as a marker for fruit and vegetable consumption. In the present study, modern, non-invasive approaches to assess dietary carotenoids, such as skin measurements and an app-based short dietary record (ASDR), were compared with conventional methods such as plasma status and handwritten 3-day dietary records. In an 8-week observational study, 21 healthy participants aged 50-65 years recorded their daily consumption of carotenoid-rich fruits and vegetables via a specially developed ASDR.

Responses of flavonoids to solar UV radiation and gradual soil drying in two Medicago truncatula accessions.

Ground level UV-B (290-315 nm) and UV-A (315-400 nm) radiation regulates multiple aspects of plant growth and development. In a natural environment, UV radiation interacts in a complex manner with other environmental factors (e.g.

A comparison of consistent UV treatment versus inconsistent UV treatment in horticultural production of lettuce.

UV radiation is an underrated radiation currently missing in many horticultural production systems of vegetables in protected cultivation. It can be added e.g.

MtEIN2 affects nitrate uptake and accumulation of photosynthetic pigments under phosphate and nitrate deficiency in Medicago truncatula.

Ethylene (ET) controls many facets of plant growth and development under abiotic and biotic stresses. MtEIN2, as a critical element of the ET signaling pathway, is essential in biotic interactions. However, the role of MtEIN2 in responding to abiotic stress, such as combined nutrient deficiency, is less known.

An arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus alters soil water retention and hydraulic conductivity in a soil texture specific way.

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) alter plant water relations and contribute to soil structure. Although soil hydraulic properties depend on soil structure and may limit plant water uptake, little is known about how AMF influence soil water retention (the relation between the soil water content and soil water potential) and hydraulic conductivity in different soils. Instead, these soil hydraulic properties often are considered to be independent of AMF presence in experiments.

Patterns of Dietary Blood Markers Are Related to Frailty Status in the FRAILOMIC Validation Phase.

The influence of nutritional factors on frailty syndrome is still poorly understood. Thus, we aimed to confirm cross-sectional associations of diet-related blood biomarker patterns with frailty and pre-frailty statuses in 1271 older adults from four European cohorts. Principal component analysis (PCA) was performed based on plasma levels of α-carotene, β-carotene, lycopene, lutein + zeaxanthin, β-cryptoxanthin, α-tocopherol, γ-tocopherol and retinol.

Regulation of carotenoid and flavonoid biosynthetic pathways in L. in protected cultivation.

In the face of a growing world population and limited land, there is an urgent demand for higher productivity of food crops, and cultivation systems must be adapted to future needs. Sustainable crop production should aim for not only high yields, but also high nutritional values. In particular, the consumption of bioactive compounds such as carotenoids and flavonoids is associated with a reduced incidence of non-transmissible diseases.

Temperature Sensing in Plants.

Temperature is a key environmental cue that influences the distribution and behavior of plants globally. Understanding how plants sense temperature and integrate this information into their development is important to determine how plants adapt to climate change and to apply this knowledge to the breeding of climate-resilient crops. The mechanisms of temperature perception in eukaryotes are only just beginning to be understood, with multiple molecular phenomena with inherent temperature dependencies, such as RNA melting, phytochrome dark reversion, and protein phase change, being exploited by nature to create thermosensory signaling networks.

Untargeted Metabolomics for Integrative Taxonomy: Metabolomics, DNA Marker-Based Sequencing, and Phenotype Bioimaging.

Integrative taxonomy is a fundamental part of biodiversity and combines traditional morphology with additional methods such as DNA sequencing or biochemistry. Here, we aim to establish untargeted metabolomics for use in chemotaxonomy. We used three thallose liverwort species , , and (order Marchantiales, Ricciaceae) with (order Marchantiales, Lunulariacea) as an outgroup.

Sources of nitrous oxide emissions from hydroponic tomato cultivation: Evidence from stable isotope analyses.

Introduction: Hydroponic vegetable cultivation is characterized by high intensity and frequent nitrogen fertilizer application, which is related to greenhouse gas emissions, especially in the form of nitrous oxide (NO). So far, there is little knowledge about the sources of NO emissions from hydroponic systems, with the few studies indicating that denitrification could play a major role.

Methods: Here, we use evidence from an experiment with tomato plants () grown in a hydroponic greenhouse setup to further shed light into the process of NO production based on the NO isotopocule method and the N tracing approach.

Steroidal glycoside profile differences among primary roots system and adventitious roots in Solanum dulcamara.

Solanum dulcamara primary and adventitious roots showed qualitative and quantitative differences in their steroidal glycosides profile. This opened new venues to evaluate the bioactivity of these molecules in belowground ecosystems. The Solanum genus is characterized by the presence of steroidal glycosides (SGs) that confer herbivore resistance and serve as drug precursors in the pharmaceutical industry.

Grapevine leaf physiology and morphological characteristics to elevated CO in the VineyardFACE (Free air Carbon dioxide Enrichment) experiment.

Atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO) concentration has continuously increased since pre-industrial times and has currently reached an average growth rate of 2.3 ppm per year. For the majority of plant species elevated CO (eCO) improves photosynthesis and thus plant biomass production.

Usefulness and misrepresentation of phone surveys on COVID-19 and food security in Africa.

We survey efforts that track food security in Africa using phone surveys during the COVID-19 pandemic. Phone surveys are concentrated in a few countries mostly focusing on a narrow theme. Only a few allow heterogeneous analyses across socioeconomic, spatial, and intertemporal dimensions across countries, leaving important issues inadequately enumerated.

The community ecology perspective of omics data.

The measurement of uncharacterized pools of biological molecules through techniques such as metabarcoding, metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, metabolomics, and metaproteomics produces large, multivariate datasets. Analyses of these datasets have successfully been borrowed from community ecology to characterize the molecular diversity of samples (ɑ-diversity) and to assess how these profiles change in response to experimental treatments or across gradients (β-diversity). However, sample preparation and data collection methods generate biases and noise which confound molecular diversity estimates and require special attention.

Using leaf spectroscopy and pigment estimation to monitor indoor grown lettuce dynamic response to spectral light intensity.

Rising urban food demand is being addressed by plant factories, which aim at producing quality food in closed environment with optimised use of resources. The efficiency of these new plant production systems could be further increased by automated control of plant health and nutritious composition during cultivation, allowing for increased produce value and closer match between plant needs and treatment application with potential energy savings. We hypothesise that certain leaf pigments, including chlorophylls, carotenoids and anthocyanins, which are responsive to light, may be good indicator of plant performance and related healthy compounds composition and, that the combination of leaf spectroscopy and mathematical modelling will allow monitoring of plant cultivation through noninvasive estimation of leaf pigments.