scholarly journals Oil Palm Fatal Yellowing (FY), a Disease with an Elusive Causal Agent

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cleiton Barroso Bittencourt ◽  
Philippe de Castro Lins ◽  
Alessandra de Jesus Boari ◽  
Betania Ferraz Quirino ◽  
Wenceslau Geraldes Teixeira ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Abiotic Stress ◽  
Oil Palm ◽  
Ionic Composition ◽  
Genetic Resistance ◽  
Causal Agent ◽  
Economic Losses ◽  
Biotic And Abiotic Stress ◽  
History Of ◽  
Yellowing Disease ◽  
Oil Palm Industry

Fatal yellowing disease (FY) is a bud rot-type disease that severely affects oil palm plantations in Latin America. Since 1974, when it was first reported in Brazil, this disorder has been responsible for severe economic losses in the oil palm industry; and, for nearly 50 years, several studies have tried to identify its causal agent, without success. The etiological studies regarding FY in oil palm explored either biotic and abiotic stress scenarios, in a single or combined manner. Most recently, the hypothesis in favor of one biotic cause has lost some grounds to the abiotic one, mainly due to new insights regarding deficient aeration in the soil, which reduces the potential for oxy-reduction, causing changes in the ionic composition of the soil solution. This review presents an overview of the history of this disease and the several efforts done to fulfill Koch’s postulates over the last 40 years, besides discussing recent studies that revisited this subject using some omics technics. We conclude by discussing further uses of omics via a multi-omics integration (MOI) strategy to help finally find out what is really behind the genesis of FY. Finding this elusive causal agent of FY out will allow either the development of a more efficient diagnostic tool and the advance in studies trying to find out the source of the genetic resistance hidden in the genome of the American oil palm.

scholarly journals Genome-Wide Transcriptomic Identification and Functional Insight of Lily WRKY Genes Responding to Botrytis Fungal Disease

Plants ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 776
Author(s):  
Shipra Kumari ◽  
Bashistha Kumar Kanth ◽  
Ju young Ahn ◽  
Jong Hwa Kim ◽  
Geung-Joo Lee
Keyword(s):  
Abiotic Stress ◽  
Biotic Stress ◽  
Developmental Stages ◽  
Expression Patterns ◽  
Lilium Longiflorum ◽  
Biotic And Abiotic Stress ◽  
Biotic Stresses ◽  
Genome Wide

Genome-wide transcriptome analysis using RNA-Seq of Lilium longiflorum revealed valuable genes responding to biotic stresses. WRKY transcription factors are regulatory proteins playing essential roles in defense processes under environmental stresses, causing considerable losses in flower quality and production. Thirty-eight WRKY genes were identified from the transcriptomic profile from lily genotypes, exhibiting leaf blight caused by Botrytis elliptica. Lily WRKYs have a highly conserved motif, WRKYGQK, with a common variant, WRKYGKK. Phylogeny of LlWRKYs with homologous genes from other representative plant species classified them into three groups- I, II, and III consisting of seven, 22, and nine genes, respectively. Base on functional annotation, 22 LlWRKY genes were associated with biotic stress, nine with abiotic stress, and seven with others. Sixteen unique LlWRKY were studied to investigate responses to stress conditions using gene expression under biotic and abiotic stress treatments. Five genes—LlWRKY3, LlWRKY4, LlWRKY5, LlWRKY10, and LlWRKY12—were substantially upregulated, proving to be biotic stress-responsive genes in vivo and in vitro conditions. Moreover, the expression patterns of LlWRKY genes varied in response to drought, heat, cold, and different developmental stages or tissues. Overall, our study provides structural and molecular insights into LlWRKY genes for use in the genetic engineering in Lilium against Botrytis disease.

scholarly journals Stress-Induced Changes in Alternative Splicing Landscape in Rice: Functional Significance of Splice Isoforms in Stress Tolerance

Biology ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 309
Author(s):  
Showkat Ahmad Ganie ◽  
Anireddy S. N. Reddy
Keyword(s):  
Abiotic Stress ◽  
Alternative Splicing ◽  
Stress Tolerance ◽  
Functional Significance ◽  
Growth And Development ◽  
Regulatory Mechanism ◽  
Pathogen Resistance ◽  
Biotic And Abiotic Stress ◽  
Rice Varieties ◽  
Rice Growth

Improvements in yield and quality of rice are crucial for global food security. However, global rice production is substantially hindered by various biotic and abiotic stresses. Making further improvements in rice yield is a major challenge to the rice research community, which can be accomplished through developing abiotic stress-resilient rice varieties and engineering durable agrochemical-independent pathogen resistance in high-yielding elite rice varieties. This, in turn, needs increased understanding of the mechanisms by which stresses affect rice growth and development. Alternative splicing (AS), a post-transcriptional gene regulatory mechanism, allows rapid changes in the transcriptome and can generate novel regulatory mechanisms to confer plasticity to plant growth and development. Mounting evidence indicates that AS has a prominent role in regulating rice growth and development under stress conditions. Several regulatory and structural genes and splicing factors of rice undergo different types of stress-induced AS events, and the functional significance of some of them in stress tolerance has been defined. Both rice and its pathogens use this complex regulatory mechanism to devise strategies against each other. This review covers the current understanding and evidence for the involvement of AS in biotic and abiotic stress-responsive genes, and its relevance to rice growth and development. Furthermore, we discuss implications of AS for the virulence of different rice pathogens and highlight the areas of further research and potential future avenues to develop climate-smart and disease-resistant rice varieties.

scholarly journals R2R3-MYB transcription factors, StmiR858 and sucrose mediate potato flavonol biosynthesis

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sen Lin ◽  
Rajesh K. Singh ◽  
Moehninsi ◽  
Duroy A. Navarre
Keyword(s):  
Gene Expression ◽  
Abiotic Stress ◽  
Feedback Loop ◽  
Regulatory Mechanisms ◽  
Phenylpropanoid Metabolism ◽  
Biotic And Abiotic Stress ◽  
Health Promoting ◽  
Transient Overexpression ◽  
R2r3 Myb ◽  
R2r3 Myb Transcription Factors

AbstractFlavonols and other phenylpropanoids protect plants from biotic and abiotic stress and are dietarily desirable because of their health-promoting properties. The ability to develop new potatoes (Solanum tuberosum) with optimal types and amounts of phenylpropanoids is limited by lack of knowledge about the regulatory mechanisms. Exogenous sucrose increased flavonols, whereas overexpression of the MYB StAN1 induced sucrolytic gene expression. Heterologous StAN1 protein bound promoter fragments from sucrolytic genes (SUSY1 and INV1). Two additional MYBs and one microRNA were identified that regulated potato flavonols. Overexpression analysis showed MYB12A and C increased amounts of flavonols and other phenylpropanoids. Endogenous flavonol amounts in light-exposed organs were much higher those in the dark. Expression levels of StMYB12A and C were high in flowers but low in tubers. Transient overexpression of miR858 altered potato flavonol metabolism. Endogenous StmiR858 expression was much lower in flowers than leaves and correlated with flavonol amounts in these organs. Collectively, these findings support the hypothesis that sucrose, MYBs, and miRNA control potato phenylpropanoid metabolism in a finely tuned manner that includes a feedback loop between sucrose and StAN1. These findings will aid in the development of potatoes with phenylpropanoid profiles optimized for crop performance and human health.

scholarly journals Application of CRISPR/Cas9 technology in wild apple (Malus sieverii) for paired sites gene editing

Plant Methods ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yan Zhang ◽  
Ping Zhou ◽  
Tohir A. Bozorov ◽  
Daoyuan Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Abiotic Stress ◽  
Human Activities ◽  
Genetic Improvement ◽  
Gene Editing ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Tianshan Mountains ◽  
Biotic And Abiotic Stress ◽  
Guide Rna ◽  
Cas9 Protein ◽  
Albino Phenotype

Abstract Background Xinjiang wild apple is an important tree of the Tianshan Mountains, and in recent years, it has undergone destruction by many biotic and abiotic stress and human activities. It is necessary to use new technologies to research its genomic function and molecular improvement. The clustered regulatory interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/CRISPR-associated protein (Cas) system has been successfully applied to genetic improvement in many crops, but its editing capability varies depending on the different combinations of the synthetic guide RNA (sgRNA) and Cas9 protein expression devices. Results In this study, we used 2 systems of vectors with paired sgRNAs targeting to MsPDS. As expected, we successfully induced the albino phenotype of calli and buds in both systems. Conclusions We conclude that CRISPR/Cas9 is a powerful system for editing the wild apple genome and expands the range of plants available for gene editing.

scholarly journals Identification of SNPs Associated with Somatic Cell Score in Candidate Genes in Italian Holstein Friesian Bulls

Animals ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 366
Author(s):  
Riccardo Moretti ◽  
Dominga Soglia ◽  
Stefania Chessa ◽  
Stefano Sartore ◽  
Raffaella Finocchiaro ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Candidate Genes ◽  
Genetic Resistance ◽  
Genetic Selection ◽  
Significant Snps ◽  
Economic Losses ◽  
Genotype Distribution ◽  
Inflammatory Reactions ◽  
Next Generation Sequencing Technology ◽  
Holstein Friesian ◽  
Holstein Bulls

Mastitis is an infectious disease affecting the mammary gland, leading to inflammatory reactions and to heavy economic losses due to milk production decrease. One possible way to tackle the antimicrobial resistance issue stemming from antimicrobial therapy is to select animals with a genetic resistance to this disease. Therefore, aim of this study was to analyze the genetic variability of the SNPs found in candidate genes related to mastitis resistance in Holstein Friesian bulls. Target regions were amplified, sequenced by Next-Generation Sequencing technology on the Illumina® MiSeq, and then analyzed to find correlation with mastitis related phenotypes in 95 Italian Holstein bulls chosen with the aid of a selective genotyping approach. On a total of 557 detected mutations, 61 showed different genotype distribution in the tails of the deregressed EBVs for SCS and 15 were identified as significantly associated with the phenotype using two different approaches. The significant SNPs were identified in intergenic or intronic regions of six genes, known to be key components in the immune system (namely CXCR1, DCK, NOD2, MBL2, MBL1 and M-SAA3.2). These SNPs could be considered as candidates for a future genetic selection for mastitis resistance, although further studies are required to assess their presence in other dairy cattle breeds and their possible negative correlation with other traits.

scholarly journals Evolution and Application of Genome Editing Techniques for Achieving Food and Nutritional Security

2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (11) ◽  
pp. 5585
Author(s):  
Sajid Fiaz ◽  
Sunny Ahmar ◽  
Sajjad Saeed ◽  
Aamir Riaz ◽  
Freddy Mora-Poblete ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Abiotic Stress ◽  
Food Security ◽  
Plant Breeding ◽  
Genome Editing ◽  
Crop Improvement ◽  
Hybrid Seed Production ◽  
Biotic And Abiotic Stress ◽  
Transcription Activator ◽  
Protein System ◽  
Breeding Techniques

A world with zero hunger is possible only through a sustainable increase in food production and distribution and the elimination of poverty. Scientific, logistical, and humanitarian approaches must be employed simultaneously to ensure food security, starting with farmers and breeders and extending to policy makers and governments. The current agricultural production system is facing the challenge of sustainably increasing grain quality and yield and enhancing resistance to biotic and abiotic stress under the intensifying pressure of climate change. Under present circumstances, conventional breeding techniques are not sufficient. Innovation in plant breeding is critical in managing agricultural challenges and achieving sustainable crop production. Novel plant breeding techniques, involving a series of developments from genome editing techniques to speed breeding and the integration of omics technology, offer relevant, versatile, cost-effective, and less time-consuming ways of achieving precision in plant breeding. Opportunities to edit agriculturally significant genes now exist as a result of new genome editing techniques. These range from random (physical and chemical mutagens) to non-random meganucleases (MegaN), zinc finger nucleases (ZFNs), transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs), clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/associated protein system 9 (CRISPR/Cas9), the CRISPR system from Prevotella and Francisella1 (Cpf1), base editing (BE), and prime editing (PE). Genome editing techniques that promote crop improvement through hybrid seed production, induced apomixis, and resistance to biotic and abiotic stress are prioritized when selecting for genetic gain in a restricted timeframe. The novel CRISPR-associated protein system 9 variants, namely BE and PE, can generate transgene-free plants with more frequency and are therefore being used for knocking out of genes of interest. We provide a comprehensive review of the evolution of genome editing technologies, especially the application of the third-generation genome editing technologies to achieve various plant breeding objectives within the regulatory regimes adopted by various countries. Future development and the optimization of forward and reverse genetics to achieve food security are evaluated.

scholarly journals First Survey of SNPs in TMEM154, TLR9, MYD88 and CCR5 Genes in Sheep Reared in Italy and their Association with Resistance to SRLVs Infection

Viruses ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 1290
Author(s):  
Chiara Arcangeli ◽  
Daniele Lucarelli ◽  
Martina Torricelli ◽  
Carla Sebastiani ◽  
Marcella Ciullo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Resistance ◽  
Economic Losses ◽  
Ccr5 Gene ◽  
Innovative Strategy ◽  
Visna Virus ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Tlr9 Gene ◽  
Novel Variants ◽  
Serological Status

Maedi-visna virus (MVV) and caprine arthritis encephalitis virus (CAEV), referred to as small ruminant lentiviruses (SRLVs), belong to the genus Lentivirus of the Retroviridae family. SRLVs infect both sheep and goats, causing significant economic losses and animal welfare damage. Recent findings suggest an association between serological status and allelic variants of different genes such as TMEM154, TLR9, MYD88 and CCR5. The aim of this work was to investigate the role of specific polymorphisms of these genes in SRLVs infection in some sheep flocks in Italy. In addition to those already known, novel variants in the TMEM154 (P7H, I74V, I105V) gene were detected in this study. The risk of infection was determined finding an association between the serological status and polymorphisms P7H, E35K, N70I, I74V, I105V of TMEM154, R447Q, A462S and G520R in TLR9 gene, H176H* and K190K* in MYD88 genes, while no statistical association was observed for the 4-bp deletion of the CCR5 gene. Since no vaccines or treatments have been developed, a genetically based approach could be an innovative strategy to prevent and to control SRLVs infection. Our findings are an important starting point in order to define the genetic resistance profile towards SRLVs infection.

scholarly journals Fire Blight Symptomatic Shoots and the Presence of Erwinia amylovora in Asymptomatic Apple Budwood

Plant Disease ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 101 (1) ◽  
pp. 186-191 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. A. Tancos ◽  
E. Borejsza-Wysocka ◽  
S. Kuehne ◽  
D. Breth ◽  
Kerik D. Cox
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Fire Blight ◽  
Erwinia Amylovora ◽  
Causal Agent ◽  
Economic Losses ◽  
Apple Trees ◽  
The Mean ◽  
Collection Practices ◽  
Time Of Collection ◽  
Young Apple

Erwinia amylovora, the causal agent of fire blight, causes considerable economic losses in young apple plantings in New York on a yearly basis. Nurseries make efforts to only use clean budwood for propagation, which is essential, but E. amylovora may be present in trees that appear to have no apparent fire blight symptoms at the time of collection. We hypothesized that the use of infected budwood, especially by commercial nursery operations, could be the cause, in part, of fire blight outbreaks that often occur in young apple plantings in New York. Our goal was to investigate the presence of E. amylovora in asymptomatic budwood from nursery source plantings as it relates to trees with fire blight symptoms. From 2012 to 2015, apple budwood was collected from two commercial budwood source plantings of ‘Gala’ and ‘Topaz’ at increasing distances from visually symptomatic trees. From these collections, internal contents of apple buds were analyzed for the presence of E. amylovora. E. amylovora was detected in asymptomatic budwood in trees more than 20 m from trees with fire blight symptoms. In some seasons, there were significant (P ≤ 0.05) differences in the incidence of E. amylovora in asymptomatic budwood collected from symptomatic trees and those up to 20 m from them. In 2014 and 2015, the mean E. amylovora CFU per gram recovered from budwood in both the Gala and Topaz plantings were significantly lower in budwood collected 20 m from symptomatic trees. Further investigation of individual bud dissections revealed that E. amylovora was within the tissue beneath the bud scales containing the meristem. Results from the study highlight the shortcomings of current budwood collection practices and the need to better understand the factors that lead to the presence of E. amylovora in bud tissues to ensure the production of pathogen-free apple trees.

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