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1.
Ozonation as a Method of Abiotic Elicitation Improving the Health-Promoting Properties of Plant Products-A Review.
Sachadyn-Król, M, Agriopoulou, S
Molecules (Basel, Switzerland). 2020;(10)
Abstract
In this review, the primary objective was to systematize knowledge about the possibility of improving the health-promoting properties of raw plant products, defined as an increase in the content of bioactive compounds, by using ozone. The greatest attention has been paid to the postharvest treatment of plant raw materials with ozone because of its widespread use. The effect of this treatment on the health-promoting properties depends on the following different factors: type and variety of the fruit or vegetable, form and method of ozone treatment, and dosage of ozone. It seems that ozone applied in the form of ozonated water works more gently than in gaseous form. Relatively high concentration and long contact time used simultaneously might result in increased oxidative stress which leads to the degradation of quality. The majority of the literature demonstrates the degradation of vitamin C and deterioration of color after treatment with ozone. Unfortunately, it is not clear if ozone can be used as an elicitor to improve the quality of the raw material. Most sources prove that the best results in increasing the content of bioactive components can be obtained by applying ozone at a relatively low concentration for a short time immediately after harvest.
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2.
Root Development and Stress Tolerance in rice: The Key to Improving Stress Tolerance without Yield Penalties.
Seo, DH, Seomun, S, Choi, YD, Jang, G
International journal of molecular sciences. 2020;(5)
Abstract
Roots anchor plants and take up water and nutrients from the soil; therefore, root development strongly affects plant growth and productivity. Moreover, increasing evidence indicates that root development is deeply involved in plant tolerance to abiotic stresses such as drought and salinity. These findings suggest that modulating root growth and development provides a potentially useful approach to improve plant abiotic stress tolerance. Such targeted approaches may avoid the yield penalties that result from growth-defense trade-offs produced by global induction of defenses against abiotic stresses. This review summarizes the developmental mechanisms underlying root development and discusses recent studies about modulation of root growth and stress tolerance in rice.
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3.
Emerging consensus on the collapse of unfolded and intrinsically disordered proteins in water.
Best, RB
Current opinion in structural biology. 2020;:27-38
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Abstract
Establishing the degree of collapse of unfolded or disordered proteins is a fundamental problem in biophysics, because of its relation to protein folding and to the function of intrinsically disordered proteins. However, until recently, different experiments gave qualitatively different results on collapse and there were large discrepancies between experiments and all-atom simulations. New methodology introduced in the past three years has helped to resolve the differences between experiments, and improvements in simulations have closed the gap between experiment and simulation. These advances have led to an emerging consensus on the collapse of disordered proteins in water.
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4.
Water Treatment: Are Membranes the Panacea?
Landsman, MR, Sujanani, R, Brodfuehrer, SH, Cooper, CM, Darr, AG, Davis, RJ, Kim, K, Kum, S, Nalley, LK, Nomaan, SM, et al
Annual review of chemical and biomolecular engineering. 2020;:559-585
Abstract
Alongside the rising global water demand, continued stress on current water supplies has sparked interest in using nontraditional source waters for energy, agriculture, industry, and domestic needs. Membrane technologies have emerged as one of the most promising approaches to achieve water security, but implementation of membrane processes for increasingly complex waters remains a challenge. The technical feasibility of membrane processes replacing conventional treatment of alternative water supplies (e.g., wastewater, seawater, and produced water) is considered in the context of typical and emerging water quality goals. This review considers the effectiveness of current technologies (both conventional and membrane based), as well as the potential for recent advancements in membrane research to achieve these water quality goals. We envision the future of water treatment to integrate advanced membranes (e.g., mixed-matrix membranes, block copolymers) into smart treatment trains that achieve several goals, including fit-for-purpose water generation, resource recovery, and energy conservation.
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5.
The Hot Spring Hypothesis for an Origin of Life.
Damer, B, Deamer, D
Astrobiology. 2020;(4):429-452
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Abstract
We present a testable hypothesis related to an origin of life on land in which fluctuating volcanic hot spring pools play a central role. The hypothesis is based on experimental evidence that lipid-encapsulated polymers can be synthesized by cycles of hydration and dehydration to form protocells. Drawing on metaphors from the bootstrapping of a simple computer operating system, we show how protocells cycling through wet, dry, and moist phases will subject polymers to combinatorial selection and draw structural and catalytic functions out of initially random sequences, including structural stabilization, pore formation, and primitive metabolic activity. We propose that protocells aggregating into a hydrogel in the intermediate moist phase of wet-dry cycles represent a primitive progenote system. Progenote populations can undergo selection and distribution, construct niches in new environments, and enable a sharing network effect that can collectively evolve them into the first microbial communities. Laboratory and field experiments testing the first steps of the scenario are summarized. The scenario is then placed in a geological setting on the early Earth to suggest a plausible pathway from life's origin in chemically optimal freshwater hot spring pools to the emergence of microbial communities tolerant to more extreme conditions in dilute lakes and salty conditions in marine environments. A continuity is observed for biogenesis beginning with simple protocell aggregates, through the transitional form of the progenote, to robust microbial mats that leave the fossil imprints of stromatolites so representative in the rock record. A roadmap to future testing of the hypothesis is presented. We compare the oceanic vent with land-based pool scenarios for an origin of life and explore their implications for subsequent evolution to multicellular life such as plants. We conclude by utilizing the hypothesis to posit where life might also have emerged in habitats such as Mars or Saturn's icy moon Enceladus. "To postulate one fortuitously catalyzed reaction, perhaps catalyzed by a metal ion, might be reasonable, but to postulate a suite of them is to appeal to magic." -Leslie Orgel.
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Dynamics in plant roots and shoots minimize stress, save energy and maintain water and nutrient uptake.
Arsova, B, Foster, KJ, Shelden, MC, Bramley, H, Watt, M
The New phytologist. 2020;(3):1111-1119
Abstract
Plants are inherently dynamic. Dynamics minimize stress while enabling plants to flexibly acquire resources. Three examples are presented for plants tolerating saline soil: transport of sodium chloride (NaCl), water and macronutrients is nonuniform along a branched root; water and NaCl redistribute between shoot and soil at night-time; and ATP for salt exclusion is much lower in thinner branch roots than main roots, quantified using a biophysical model and geometry from anatomy. Noninvasive phenotyping and precision agriculture technologies can be used together to harness plant dynamics, but analytical methods are needed. A plant advancing in time through a soil and atmosphere space is proposed as a framework for dynamic data and their relationship to crop improvement.
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Mitigation of environmentally-related hazardous pollutants from water matrices using nanostructured materials - A review.
Bilal, M, Rasheed, T, Mehmood, S, Tang, H, Ferreira, LFR, Bharagava, RN, Iqbal, HMN
Chemosphere. 2020;:126770
Abstract
An unprecedented rise in population growth and rapid worldwide industrial development are associated with the increasing discharge of a range of toxic and baleful compounds. These toxic pollutants including dyes, endocrine-disrupters, heavy metals, personal care products, and pharmaceuticals are destructing nature's balance and intensifying environmental toxicity at a disquieting rate. Therefore, finding better, novel and more environmentally sound approaches for wastewater remediation are of great importance. Nanoscale materials have opened up some new horizons in various fields of science and technology. Among a range of treatment technologies, nanostructured materials have recently received incredible interest as an emerging platform for wastewater remediation owing to their exceptional surface-area-to-volume ratio, unique electrical and chemical properties, quantum size effects, high scalability, and tunable surface functionalities. An array of nanomaterials including noble metal-based nanostructures, transition metal oxide nanomaterials, carbon-based nanomaterials, carbon nanotubes, and graphene/graphene oxide nanomaterials to their novel nanocomposites and nanoconjugates have been attempted as the promising catalysts to overcome environmental dilemmas. In this review, we summarized recent advances in nanostructured materials that are particularly engineered for the remediation of environmental contaminants. The toxicity of various classes of relevant tailored nanomaterials towards human health and the ecosystem along with perspectives is also presented. In our opinion, an overview of the up-to-date advancements on this emerging topic may provide new ideas and thoughts for engineering low-cost and highly-efficient nanostructured materials for the abatement of recalcitrant pollutants for a sustainable environment.
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Microbial safety of oily, low water activity food products: A review.
Olaimat, AN, Osaili, TM, Al-Holy, MA, Al-Nabulsi, AA, Obaid, RS, Alaboudi, AR, Ayyash, M, Holley, R
Food microbiology. 2020;:103571
Abstract
Oily, low water activity (OL aw) products including tahini (sesame seed paste), halva (tahini halva), peanut butter, and chocolate, have been recently linked to numerous foodborne illness outbreaks and recalls. This review discusses the ingredients used and processing of OL aw products with a view to provide greater understanding of the routes of their contamination with foodborne pathogens and factors influencing pathogen persistence in these foods. Adequate heat treatment during processing may eliminate bacterial pathogens from OL aw foods; however, post-processing contamination commonly occurs. Once these products are contaminated, their high fat and sugar content can enhance pathogen survival for long periods. The physiological basis and survival mechanisms used by pathogens in these products are comprehensively discussed here. Foodborne outbreaks and recalls linked to OL aw foods are summarized and it was observed that serotypes of Salmonella enterica were the predominant pathogens causing illnesses. Further, intervention strategies available to control foodborne pathogens such as thermal inactivation, use of natural antimicrobials, irradiation and hydrostatic pressure are assessed for their usefulness to achieve pathogen control and enhance the safety of OL aw foods. Sanitation, hygienic design of manufacturing facilities, good hygienic practices, and environmental monitoring of OL aw food industries were also discussed.
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Cysteine, glutathione and a new genetic code: biochemical adaptations of the primordial cells that spread into open water and survived biospheric oxygenation.
Moosmann, B, Schindeldecker, M, Hajieva, P
Biological chemistry. 2020;(2):213-231
Abstract
Life most likely developed under hyperthermic and anaerobic conditions in close vicinity to a stable geochemical source of energy. Epitomizing this conception, the first cells may have arisen in submarine hydrothermal vents in the middle of a gradient established by the hot and alkaline hydrothermal fluid and the cooler and more acidic water of the ocean. To enable their escape from this energy-providing gradient layer, the early cells must have overcome a whole series of obstacles. Beyond the loss of their energy source, the early cells had to adapt to a loss of external iron-sulfur catalysis as well as to a formidable temperature drop. The developed solutions to these two problems seem to have followed the principle of maximum parsimony: Cysteine was introduced into the genetic code to anchor iron-sulfur clusters, and fatty acid unsaturation was installed to maintain lipid bilayer viscosity. Unfortunately, both solutions turned out to be detrimental when the biosphere became more oxidizing after the evolution of oxygenic photosynthesis. To render cysteine thiol groups and fatty acid unsaturation compatible with life under oxygen, numerous counter-adaptations were required including the advent of glutathione and the addition of the four latest amino acids (methionine, tyrosine, tryptophan, selenocysteine) to the genetic code. In view of the continued diversification of derived antioxidant mechanisms, it appears that modern life still struggles with the initially developed strategies to escape from its hydrothermal birthplace. Only archaea may have found a more durable solution by entirely exchanging their lipid bilayer components and rigorously restricting cysteine usage.
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10.
The physiology of plant responses to drought.
Gupta, A, Rico-Medina, A, Caño-Delgado, AI
Science (New York, N.Y.). 2020;(6488):266-269
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Abstract
Drought alone causes more annual loss in crop yield than all pathogens combined. To adapt to moisture gradients in soil, plants alter their physiology, modify root growth and architecture, and close stomata on their aboveground segments. These tissue-specific responses modify the flux of cellular signals, resulting in early flowering or stunted growth and, often, reduced yield. Physiological and molecular analyses of the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana have identified phytohormone signaling as key for regulating the response to drought or water insufficiency. Here we discuss how engineering hormone signaling in specific cells and cellular domains can facilitate improved plant responses to drought. We explore current knowledge and future questions central to the quest to produce high-yield, drought-resistant crops.