| 1. |
- Imran, Muhammad, et al.
(författare)
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Exogenous Melatonin mediates the regulation of endogenous nitric oxide in Glycine max L. to reduce effects of drought stress
- 2021
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Ingår i: Environmental and Experimental Botany. - : Elsevier. - 0098-8472 .- 1873-7307. ; 188
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Drought stress retards plant growth and yield. Melatonin and nitric oxide (NO) have demonstrated their potential role against abiotic stresses; however, the underlying molecular mechanism by which they interact and extend drought stress tolerance has not been fully elucidated. Herein, the current study was performed to establish the optimum beneficial concentration of MT and NO in combating drought stress and later understand its responses at biochemical, and molecular levels. Results showed exogenous MT, and sodium nitroprusside (SNP as NO donor) have counteracted drought-induced growth inhibition of soybean (Glycine max L.) by increasing plant biomass, photosynthesis efficiency and water content and reducing reactive oxygen species accumulation. MT and NO treatments showed reduced lipid peroxidation and improved defense responses via significantly higher antioxidant enzyme activities than control during drought. Surprisingly, endogenous abscisic acid (ABA) contents and gene expression of its synthesis and ABA-responsive proteins and their promoters were significantly decreased in drought by MT + NO. This was coupled with an increase in endogenous MT levels. In endo-NO regulations, S-nitrosoglutathione was increased, but L-NAME (NO inhibitor) and cPTIO (NO scavenger) decreased the S-nitrosothiol (SNO) contents, which was followed by the increased expression of NO-synthesis-related-genes by MT + NO. Interestingly, MT + NO-induced drought stress tolerance was coupled with increased expression of transcription factors such as GmWRKY27 and GmMYB174. Conclusively, the physiological, antioxidant, and molecular analysis showed that MT triggers downregulated NO accumulation, promoting tolerance against drought stress.
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| 2. |
- Mushtaq, Iram, et al.
(författare)
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N-acetyl cysteine, selenium, and ascorbic acid rescue diabetic cardiac hypertrophy via mitochondrial-associated redox regulators
- 2021
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Ingår i: Molecules. - : MDPI AG. - 1420-3049. ; 26:23
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Metabolic disorders often lead to cardiac complications. Metabolic deregulations during diabetic conditions are linked to mitochondrial dysfunctions, which are the key contributing factors in cardiac hypertrophy. However, the underlying mechanisms involved in diabetes-induced cardiac hypertrophy are poorly understood. In the current study, we initially established a diabetic rat model by alloxan-administration, which was validated by peripheral glucose measurement. Diabetic rats displayed myocardial stiffness and fibrosis, changes in heart weight/body weight, heart weight/tibia length ratios, and enhanced size of myocytes, which altogether demonstrated the establishment of diabetic cardiac hypertrophy (DCH). Furthermore, we examined the expression of genes associated with mitochondrial signaling impairment. Our data show that the expression of PGC-1α, cytochrome c, MFN-2, and Drp-1 was deregulated. Mitochondrial-signaling impairment was further validated by redox-system dysregulation, which showed a significant increase in ROS and thiobarbituric acid reactive substances, both in serum and heart tissue, whereas the superoxide dismutase, catalase, and glutathione levels were decreased. Additionally, the expression levels of pro-apoptotic gene PUMA and stress marker GATA-4 genes were elevated, whereas ARC, PPARα, and Bcl-2 expression levels were decreased in the heart tissues of diabetic rats. Importantly, these alloxan-induced impairments were rescued by N-acetyl cysteine, ascorbic acid, and selenium treatment. This was demonstrated by the amelioration of myocardial stiffness, fibrosis, mitochondrial gene expression, lipid profile, restoration of myocyte size, reduced oxidative stress, and the activation of enzymes associated with antioxidant activities. Altogether, these data indicate that the improvement of mitochondrial dysfunction by protective agents such as N-acetyl cysteine, selenium, and ascorbic acid could rescue diabetes-associated cardiac complications, including DCH.
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| 3. |
- Al Azzawi, Tiba Nazar Ibrahim, et al.
(författare)
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Evaluation of Iraqi Rice Cultivars for Their Tolerance to Drought Stress
- 2020
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Ingår i: Agronomy. - : MDPI. - 2073-4395. ; 10:11
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Drought stress is a serious problem around the globe and particularly in the Republic of Iraq. Rice is the third most consumed crop for the Iraqi people; however, its cultivation and production is very low due to several challenges including drought. The current study was performed to evaluate five Iraqi rice cultivars along with relevant (drought-tolerant and drought-susceptible) controls under drought stress, either by treatment with 10% PEG (polyethylene glycol) or through water withholding to induce natural drought stress. The phenotypes of all the cultivars were evaluated and the transcriptional responses of key drought-responsive candidate genes, identified through the EST-SSR marker-based approach, were studied. We also studied transcript accumulation of drought-related transcriptional factors, such as OsGRASS23, OsbZIP12, and OsDREB2A. Moreover, the reference cultivars also included a drought-tolerant inter-specific cultivar Nerica 7 (a cross between Oryza sativa ssp. indica X O. glaberrima). Among the cultivars, the more drought-tolerant phenotypic characteristics and higher transcript accumulation of drought-related marker genes OsE647 and OsE1899 and transcriptional factors OsGRASS23, OsbZIP12, and OsDREB2A were observed in four (out of five) significantly drought-tolerant Iraqi cultivars; Mashkab, followed by Furat, Yasmen, and Amber 33. On another note, Amber Barka was found to be significantly drought susceptible. Mashkab and Amber Barka were found to be the most drought-tolerant and-susceptible cultivars, respectively. The identified tolerant cultivars may potentially serve as a genetic source for the incorporation of drought-tolerant phenotypes in rice.
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| 4. |
- Khan, Murtaza, et al.
(författare)
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Nitric oxide-induced AtAO3 differentially regulates plant defense against Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato in Arabidopsis thaliana
- 2019
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Ingår i: BMC Plant Biology. - : BioMed Central. - 1471-2229.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: Exposure of plants to different environmental insults instigates significant changes in the cellular redox tone driven in part by promoting the production of reactive nitrogen species. The key player, nitric oxide (NO) is a small gaseous diatomic molecule, well-known for its signaling role during stress. In this study, we focused on abscisic acid (ABA) metabolism-related genes that showed differential expression in response to the NO donor S-nitroso-L-cysteine (CySNO) by conducting RNA-seq-based transcriptomic analysis.Results: CySNO-induced ABA-related genes were identified and further characterized. Gene ontology terms for biological processes showed most of the genes were associated with protein phosphorylation. Promoter analysis suggested that several cis-regulatory elements were activated under biotic and/or abiotic stress conditions. The ABA biosynthetic gene AtAO3 was selected for validation using functional genomics. The loss of function mutant atao3 was found to differentially regulate oxidative and nitrosative stress. Further investigations for determining the role of AtAO3 in plant defense suggested a negative regulation of plant basal defense and R-gene-mediated resistance. The atao3 plants showed resistance to virulent Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato strain DC3000 (Pst DC3000) with gradual increase in PR1 gene expression. Similarly, atao3 plants showed increased hypersensitive response (HR) when challenged with Pst DC3000 (avrB). The atgsnor1–3 and atsid2 mutants showed a susceptible phenotype with reduced PR1 transcript accumulation. Drought tolerance assay indicated that atao3 and atnced3 ABA-deficient mutants showed early wilting, followed by plant death. The study of stomatal structure showed that atao3 and atnced3 were unable to close stomata even at 7 days after drought stress. Further, they showed reduced ABA content and increased electrolyte leakage than the wild-type (WT) plants. The quantitative polymerase chain reaction analysis suggested that ABA biosynthesis genes were down-regulated, whereas expression of most of the drought-related genes were up-regulated in atao3 than in WT.Conclusions: AtAO3 negatively regulates pathogen-induced salicylic acid pathway, although it is required for drought tolerance, despite the fact that ABA production is not totally dependent on AtAO3, and that drought-related genes like DREB2 and ABI2 show response to drought irrespective of ABA content.
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| 5. |
- Peden, John F., et al.
(författare)
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A genome-wide association study in Europeans and South Asians identifies five new loci for coronary artery disease
- 2011
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Ingår i: Nature Genetics. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1061-4036 .- 1546-1718. ; 43:4, s. 339-344
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Genome-wide association studies have identified 11 common variants convincingly associated with coronary artery disease (CAD)(1-7), a modest number considering the apparent heritability of CAD(8). All of these variants have been discovered in European populations. We report a meta-analysis of four large genome-wide association studies of CAD, with similar to 575,000 genotyped SNPs in a discovery dataset comprising 15,420 individuals with CAD (cases) (8,424 Europeans and 6,996 South Asians) and 15,062 controls. There was little evidence for ancestry-specific associations, supporting the use of combined analyses. Replication in an independent sample of 21,408 cases and 19,185 controls identified five loci newly associated with CAD (P < 5 x 10(-8) in the combined discovery and replication analysis): LIPA on 10q23, PDGFD on 11q22, ADAMTS7-MORF4L1 on 15q25, a gene rich locus on 7q22 and KIAA1462 on 10p11. The CAD-associated SNP in the PDGFD locus showed tissue-specific cis expression quantitative trait locus effects. These findings implicate new pathways for CAD susceptibility.
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| 6. |
- Shahid, Muhammad, et al.
(författare)
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Comprehensive Analyses of Nitric Oxide-Induced Plant Stem Cell-Related Genes in Arabidopsis thaliana
- 2019
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Ingår i: Genes. - : MDPI. - 2073-4425. ; 10:3
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Plant stem cells are pluripotent cells that have diverse applications in regenerative biology and medicine. However, their roles in plant growth and disease resistance are often overlooked. Using high-throughput RNA-seq data, we identified approximately 20 stem cell-related differentially expressed genes (DEGs) that were responsive to the nitric oxide (NO) donor S-nitrosocysteine (CySNO) after six hours of infiltration. Among these DEGs, the highest number of positive correlations (R ≥ 0.8) was observed for CLAVATA3/EMBRYO SURROUNDING REGION-RELATED (CLE) 12. Gene ontology (GO) terms for molecular function showed DEGs associated with signal transduction and receptor activity. A promoter study of these DEGs showed the presence of cis-acting elements that are involved in growth as well as the regulation of abiotic and biotic stress. Phylogenetic analysis of the Arabidopsis stem cell-related genes and their common orthologs in rice, soybean, poplar, and tomato suggested that most soybean stem cell-related genes were grouped with the Arabidopsis CLE type of stem cell genes, while the rice stem cell-related genes were grouped with the Arabidopsis receptor-like proteins. The functional genomic-based characterization of the role of stem cell DEGs showed that under control conditions, the clv1 mutant showed a similar phenotype to that of the wild-type (WT) plants; however, under CySNO-mediated nitrosative stress, clv1 showed increased shoot and root length compared to WT. Furthermore, the inoculation of clv1 with virulent Pst DC3000 showed a resistant phenotype with fewer pathogens growing at early time points. The qRT-PCR validation and correlation with the RNA-seq data showed a Pearson correlation coefficient of >0.8, indicating the significantly high reliability of the RNA-seq analysis.
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