Short-range homing in camels: displacement experiments.

Camels (Camelus dromedarius) are known to have good navigational abilities and can find their home after displacement to far places; however, there are no studies available on the navigational strategies employed by the camels in homing behavior. Thus, the aim of this study was to investigate these strategies by displacing female camels equipped with GPS trackers 6 km away from home to totally unfamiliar locations. The experiments comprised displacing nursing or non-nursing female camels 6 km from their living pens to an unfamiliar release site. Some camels were taken to the release site on foot, others were hauled on a truck, both during daytime and nighttime. Displacements journeys were either in a straight direction to the release points, or they consisted of a convoluted path. As a result, camels that had straight outward journeys were able to return home efficiently and rather directly, but camels that had convoluted trips to the release point failed to do so. Moreover, impairing olfactory, visual, and auditory inputs by using mouth/nose muzzles, eye covers and headphones did not affect homing ability. Based on these experiments the most likely hypothesis is that during their small-scale round trips the camels relied on path integration, and that this strategy is disrupted when the camels were subjected to disorientation procedures before release.

Microarray analysis of Arabidopsis WRKY33 mutants in response to the necrotrophic fungus Botrytis cinerea.

The WRKY33 transcription factor was reported for resistance to the necrotrophic fungus Botrytis cinerea. Using microarray-based analysis, we compared Arabidopsis WRKY33 overexpressing lines and wrky33 mutant that showed altered susceptibility to B. cinerea with their corresponding wild-type plants. In the wild-type, about 1660 genes (7% of the transcriptome) were induced and 1054 genes (5% of the transcriptome) were repressed at least twofold at early stages of inoculation with B. cinerea, confirming previous data of the contribution of these genes in B. cinerea resistance. In Arabidopsis wild-type plant infected with B. cinerea, the expressions of the differentially expressed genes encoding for proteins and metabolites involved in pathogen defense and non-defense responses, seem to be dependent on a functional WRKY33 gene. The expression profile of 12-oxo-phytodienoic acid- and phytoprostane A1-treated Arabidopsis plants in response to B. cinerea revealed that cyclopentenones can also modulate WRKY33 regulation upon inoculation with B. cinerea. These results support the role of electrophilic oxylipins in mediating plant responses to B. cinerea infection through the TGA transcription factor. Future directions toward the identification of the molecular components in cyclopentenone signaling will elucidate the novel oxylipin signal transduction pathways in plant defense.

Rhus coriaria suppresses angiogenesis, metastasis and tumor growth of breast cancer through inhibition of STAT3, NFκB and nitric oxide pathways.

Recently, we reported that Rhus coriaria exhibits anticancer activities by promoting cell cycle arrest and autophagic cell death of the metastatic triple negative MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells. Here, we investigated the effect of Rhus coriaria on the migration, invasion, metastasis and tumor growth of TNBC cells. Our current study revealed that non-cytotoxic concentrations of Rhus coriaria significantly inhibited migration and invasion, blocked adhesion to fibronectin and downregulated MMP-9 and prostaglandin E2 (PgE2). Not only did Rhus coriaria decrease their adhesion to HUVECs and to lung microvascular endothelial (HMVEC-L) cells, but it also inhibited the transendothelial migration of MDA-MB-231 cells through TNF-α-activated HUVECs. Furthermore, we found that Rhus coriaria inhibited angiogenesis, reduced VEGF production in both MDA-MB-231 and HUVECs and downregulated the inflammatory cytokines TNF-α, IL-6 and IL-8. The underlying mechanism for Rhus coriaria effects appears to be through inhibiting NFκB, STAT3 and nitric oxide (NO) pathways. Most importantly, by using chick embryo tumor growth assay, we showed that Rhus coriaria suppressed tumor growth and metastasis in vivo. The results described in the present study identify Rhus coriaria as a promising chemopreventive and therapeutic candidate that modulate triple negative breast cancer growth and metastasis.