Comprehensive Metabolite Profiling in Genetic Resources of Garlic (Allium sativum L.) Collected from Different Geographical Regions

Garlic (Allium sativum) is the second most important Allium crop that has been used as a vegetable and condiment from ancient times due to its characteristic flavor and taste. Although garlic is a sterile plant that reproduces vegetatively through cloves, garlic shows high biodiversity, as well as phenotypic plasticity and environmental adaptation capacity. To determine the possible mechanism underlying this phenomenon and to provide new genetic materials for the development of a novel garlic cultivar with useful agronomic traits, the metabolic profiles in the leaf tissue of 30 garlic accessions collected from different geographical regions, with a special focus on the Asian region, were investigated using LC/MS. In addition, the total saponin and fructan contents in the roots and cloves of the investigated garlic accessions were also evaluated. Total saponin and fructan contents did not separate the garlic accessions based on their geographical origin, implying that saponin and fructan contents were clone-specific and agroclimatic changes have affected the quantitative and qualitative levels of saponins in garlic over a long history of cultivation. Principal component analysis (PCA) and dendrogram clustering of the LC/MS-based metabolite profiling showed two major clusters. Specifically, many Japanese and Central Asia accessions were grouped in cluster I and showed high accumulations of flavonol glucosides, alliin, and methiin. On the other hand, garlic accessions grouped in cluster II exhibited a high accumulation of anthocyanin glucosides and amino acids. Although most of the accessions were not separated based on country of origin, the Central Asia accessions were clustered in one group, implying that these accessions exhibited distinct metabolic profiles. The present study provides useful information that can be used for germplasm selection and the development of new garlic varieties with beneficial biotic and abiotic stress-adaptive traits.

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1H NMR based metabolite profiling with special focus on tropane alkaloids in Duboisia species

Planta Medica ◽

10.1055/s-0036-1596146 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 81 (S 01) ◽

pp. S1-S381

Author(s):

SF Ullrich ◽

A Rothauer ◽

O Kayser

Keyword(s):

1H Nmr ◽

Metabolite Profiling ◽

Tropane Alkaloids ◽

Special Focus

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Introduction: The Bodhisattva Path and the Christ Path

Crucified Wisdom ◽

10.5422/fordham/9780823281244.003.0001 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 1-22

Author(s):

S. Mark Heim

Keyword(s):

Central Asia ◽

Final Section ◽

Geographical Area ◽

Silk Road ◽

Christian Theology ◽

Special Focus ◽

Theology Of Religions ◽

History Of ◽

Buddhist Teaching ◽

The Silk Road

This book is an experiment with the conviction that there is a comparative dimension in confessional theology. This chapter briefly reviews the case for using sources from other religions in the work of Christian theology. It then describes the particular aim of this text to reflect on the reconciling work of Christ in light of Buddhist teaching. Another section reviews the history of Buddhist-Christian engagement, with special focus on the geographical area of the Silk Road in Central Asia and on the case of Manichaeanism as a tradition overlapping with both Buddhism and Christianity. It also reviews the author’s previously published constructive proposal in theology of religions, as the framework for this work. A final section outlines the plan of the book.

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Heat Shock Proteins: Dynamic Biomolecules to Counter Plant Biotic and Abiotic Stresses

International Journal of Molecular Sciences ◽

10.3390/ijms20215321 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 20 (21) ◽

pp. 5321 ◽

Cited By ~ 21

Author(s):

ul Haq ◽

Khan ◽

Ali ◽

Khattak ◽

Gai ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Heat Shock ◽

Heat Shock Proteins ◽

Stress Tolerance ◽

Abiotic Stresses ◽

Plant Immunity ◽

Abiotic Stress Tolerance ◽

Special Focus ◽

Biotic And Abiotic Stress ◽

Biotic And Abiotic Stresses ◽

Shock Proteins

Due to the present scenario of climate change, plants have to evolve strategies to survive and perform under a plethora of biotic and abiotic stresses, which restrict plant productivity. Maintenance of plant protein functional conformation and preventing non-native proteins from aggregation, which leads to metabolic disruption, are of prime importance. Plant heat shock proteins (HSPs), as chaperones, play a pivotal role in conferring biotic and abiotic stress tolerance. Moreover, HSP also enhances membrane stability and detoxifies the reactive oxygen species (ROS) by positively regulating the antioxidant enzymes system. Additionally, it uses ROS as a signal to molecules to induce HSP production. HSP also enhances plant immunity by the accumulation and stability of pathogenesis-related (PR) proteins under various biotic stresses. Thus, to unravel the entire plant defense system, the role of HSPs are discussed with a special focus on plant response to biotic and abiotic stresses, which will be helpful in the development of stress tolerance in plant crops.

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Policy Reforms and Poverty in Central Asia with Special Focus on Kyrgystan

Policy Reforms and Agriculture Development in Central Asia - Natural Resource Management and Policy ◽

10.1007/0-387-29779-0_20 ◽

2006 ◽

pp. 419-440

Author(s):

Suresh Chandra Babu ◽

William Reidhead ◽

Debdatta Sengupta

Keyword(s):

Central Asia ◽

Special Focus ◽

Policy Reforms

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The impact of oil price changes on efficiency of banks: An application in the Middle East oil exporting countries using SORM-DEA

RAIRO - Operations Research ◽

10.1051/ro/2019009 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 54 (3) ◽

pp. 719-748

Author(s):

Sepideh Kaffash ◽

Emel Aktas ◽

Mohammad Tajik

Keyword(s):

Middle Eastern ◽

Oil Prices ◽

Oil Price ◽

Special Focus ◽

Bank Efficiency ◽

Price Changes ◽

Financial Conditions ◽

Geographical Regions ◽

Two Stages ◽

The Impact

This paper presents a novel application of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to analyze the impact of oil price changes on the efficiency of banks. Factors that affect the efficiency of banks have been of interest to researchers in various geographical regions. With a special focus on oil price changes, we investigate the determinants of bank efficiency in the Middle Eastern Oil-Exporting (MEOE) countries where macro-financial conditions are substantially affected by swings in oil prices. Our analysis consists of two stages: (i) measuring the efficiency scores of banks using the Semi-Oriented Radial Measure (SORM) DEA model, (ii) investigating the impact of alternative indicators of oil prices on the estimated efficiency scores after controlling for key bank-specific and country-specific variables. The analysis is based on an un-balanced panel data of banks operating in the Middle Eastern Oil-Exporting countries over the period of 2001–2011. Our findings reveal that oil price changes affect the efficiency of banks in the MEOE countries through both direct and indirect channels. In addition, we find that Islamic banks in the region are less responsive to oil price changes than commercial and investment banks.

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Biotechnology for bioenergy dedicated trees: meeting future energy demands

Zeitschrift für Naturforschung C ◽

10.1515/znc-2016-0185 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 73 (1-2) ◽

pp. 15-32 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Hani Al-Ahmad

Keyword(s):

In Vitro Regeneration ◽

Abiotic Stress Tolerance ◽

Wood Properties ◽

Biofuel Production ◽

Growth And Yield ◽

Biotic And Abiotic Stress ◽

Lignocellulosic Feedstock ◽

Geographical Regions ◽

Site Adaptability

AbstractWith the increase in human demands for energy, purpose-grown woody crops could be part of the global renewable energy solution, especially in geographical regions where plantation forestry is feasible and economically important. In addition, efficient utilization of woody feedstocks would engage in mitigating greenhouse gas emissions, decreasing the challenge of food and energy security, and resolving the conflict between land use for food or biofuel production. This review compiles existing knowledge on biotechnological and genomics-aided improvements of biomass performance of purpose-grown poplar, willow, eucalyptus and pine species, and their relative hybrids, for efficient and sustainable bioenergy applications. This includes advancements in tree in vitro regeneration, and stable expression or modification of selected genes encoding desirable traits, which enhanced growth and yield, wood properties, site adaptability, and biotic and abiotic stress tolerance. Genetic modifications used to alter lignin/cellulose/hemicelluloses ratio and lignin composition, towards effective lignocellulosic feedstock conversion into cellulosic ethanol, are also examined. Biotech-trees still need to pass challengeable regulatory authorities’ processes, including biosafety and risk assessment analyses prior to their commercialization release. Hence, strategies developed to contain transgenes, or to mitigate potential transgene flow risks, are discussed.

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The potential of metabolomics for Leishmania research in the post-genomics era

Parasitology ◽

10.1017/s0031182009992022 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 137 (9) ◽

pp. 1291-1302 ◽

Cited By ~ 30

Author(s):

RICHARD A. SCHELTEMA ◽

SASKIA DECUYPERE ◽

RUBEN T'KINDT ◽

JEAN-CLAUDE DUJARDIN ◽

GRAHAM H. COOMBS ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Metabolite Profiling ◽

Leishmania Donovani ◽

Bioinformatics Analysis ◽

Measurement Techniques ◽

Genomic Research ◽

Metabolic Profiles ◽

Drug Resistant ◽

Pathogen Diversity ◽

Potential Impact ◽

New Generation

SUMMARYThe post-genomics era has provided researchers with access to a new generation of tools for the global characterization and understanding of pathogen diversity. This review provides a critical summary of published Leishmania post-genomic research efforts to date, and discusses the potential impact of the addition of metabolomics to the post-genomic toolbox. Metabolomics aims at understanding biology by comprehensive metabolite profiling. We present an overview of the design and interpretation of metabolomics experiments in the context of Leishmania research. Sample preparation, measurement techniques, and bioinformatics analysis of the generated complex datasets are discussed in detail. To illustrate the concepts and the expected results of metabolomics analyses, we also present an overview of comparative metabolic profiles of drug-sensitive and drug-resistant Leishmania donovani clinical isolates.

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Omics for the Improvement of Abiotic, Biotic, and Agronomic Traits in Major Cereal Crops: Applications, Challenges, and Prospects

Plants ◽

10.3390/plants10101989 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 10 (10) ◽

pp. 1989

Author(s):

Balwinder Kaur ◽

Karansher S. Sandhu ◽

Roop Kamal ◽

Kawalpreet Kaur ◽

Jagmohan Singh ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Agronomic Traits ◽

Expression Patterns ◽

Cereal Crops ◽

Biotic And Abiotic Stress ◽

Crop Breeding ◽

Comprehensive Overview ◽

Metabolomic Profiling ◽

Study Gene Expression ◽

Transcriptomics Data ◽

Small Density

Omics technologies, namely genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, and phenomics, are becoming an integral part of virtually every commercial cereal crop breeding program, as they provide substantial dividends per unit time in both pre-breeding and breeding phases. Continuous advances in omics assure time efficiency and cost benefits to improve cereal crops. This review provides a comprehensive overview of the established omics methods in five major cereals, namely rice, sorghum, maize, barley, and bread wheat. We cover the evolution of technologies in each omics section independently and concentrate on their use to improve economically important agronomic as well as biotic and abiotic stress-related traits. Advancements in the (1) identification, mapping, and sequencing of molecular/structural variants; (2) high-density transcriptomics data to study gene expression patterns; (3) global and targeted proteome profiling to study protein structure and interaction; (4) metabolomic profiling to quantify organ-level, small-density metabolites, and their composition; and (5) high-resolution, high-throughput, image-based phenomics approaches are surveyed in this review.

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Functional Markers for Precision Plant Breeding

International Journal of Molecular Sciences ◽

10.3390/ijms21134792 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 21 (13) ◽

pp. 4792

Author(s):

Romesh K. Salgotra ◽

C. Neal Stewart

Keyword(s):

Abiotic Stress ◽

Plant Breeding ◽

Stress Resistance ◽

High Throughput Sequencing ◽

Agronomic Traits ◽

Direct Selection ◽

Phenotypic Traits ◽

Functional Markers ◽

Grand Challenge ◽

Biotic And Abiotic Stress

Advances in molecular biology including genomics, high-throughput sequencing, and genome editing enable increasingly faster and more precise cultivar development. Identifying genes and functional markers (FMs) that are highly associated with plant phenotypic variation is a grand challenge. Functional genomics approaches such as transcriptomics, targeting induced local lesions in genomes (TILLING), homologous recombinant (HR), association mapping, and allele mining are all strategies to identify FMs for breeding goals, such as agronomic traits and biotic and abiotic stress resistance. The advantage of FMs over other markers used in plant breeding is the close genomic association of an FM with a phenotype. Thereby, FMs may facilitate the direct selection of genes associated with phenotypic traits, which serves to increase selection efficiencies to develop varieties. Herein, we review the latest methods in FM development and how FMs are being used in precision breeding for agronomic and quality traits as well as in breeding for biotic and abiotic stress resistance using marker assisted selection (MAS) methods. In summary, this article describes the use of FMs in breeding for development of elite crop cultivars to enhance global food security goals.

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