Microelectric Current Treatment Enhanced Biodegradation of Pumpkin Lignocelluloses by Trichoderma reesei RUT-C30.

A homemade microcurrent reactor was used to treat the fermentation of Trichoderma reesei. Results indicated that the yield of saccharides for T. reesei RUT-C30 cultivated in pumpkin lignocellulose broth reaches 38.86% (w/w) when a microcurrent treatment (20 mA, at the 48th hour for 60 min) was carried out, which is significantly higher than the control group (p < 0.05). Additionally, activities of endoglucanase, cellobiohydrolase, xylanase, and pectinase were significantly increased in days 3-7. Furthermore, the fungal growth was facilitated by microelectric treatment, showing a 0.57-fold increase of spore numbers at the sixth day of cultivation. Besides, the monosaccharide composition, including glucose (1.03 mg/mL), xylose (0.12 mg/mL), arabinose (0.31 mg/mL), and fructose (0.13 mg/mL), extracted from the reactor was higher than that without the current treatment. In this work, we improved the biodegradation of lignocellulosic wastes by applying a microcurrent to lignocellulose-degrading fungal cultures and provided a new idea for the lignocellulose material pretreatment and bioconversion.

Characterization of WRKY transcription factors in Solanum lycopersicum reveals collinearity and their expression patterns under cold treatment.

WRKY transcription factors play an important role in cold defense of plants. However, little information is available about the cold-responsive WRKYs in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum). In the present study, a complete characterization of this gene family was described. Eighty WRKY genes in the tomato genome were identified. Almost all WRKY genes contain putative stress-responsive cis-elements in their promoter regions. Segmental duplications contributed significantly to the expansion of the SlWRKY gene family. Transcriptional analysis revealed notable differential expression in tomato tissues and expression patterns under cold stress, which indicated wide functional divergence in this family. Ten WRKYs in tomato were strongly induced more than 2-fold during cold stress. These genes represented candidate genes for future functional analysis of WRKYs involved in the cold-related signal pathways. Our data provide valuable information about tomato WRKY proteins and form a foundation for future studies of these proteins, especially for those that play an important role in response to cold stress.

Hot air treatment-induced arginine catabolism is associated with elevated polyamines and proline levels and alleviates chilling injury in postharvest tomato fruit.

BACKGROUND: To understand whether arginine catabolism might be involved in hot air (HA)-induced chilling tolerance mechanism in tomato fruit, we investigated the effect of HA treatment on endogenous arginine catabolism in relation to chilling injury. RESULTS: Tomato fruit were harvested at mature green stage and treated with HA at 38°C for 12 h and then stored at 2°C for 21 days. The effects of HA treatment on fruit chilling injury and gene expression levels or enzyme activity, and metabolites related to arginine catabolism were evaluated. HA treatment reduced the chilling injury symptoms of tomato fruit and enhanced the accumulation of endogenous polyamines, especially putrescine and proline. This accumulation is associated with the increased transcript levels of genes encoding arginase (LeARG1 and LeARG2), arginine decarboxylase (LeADC), ornithine decarboxylase (LeODC) and ornithine aminotransferase (LeOAT) at most sampling times. However, HA treatment had little effect on nitric oxide synthase activity and nitric oxide concentration. CONCLUSION: These results revealed that the reduction in chilling injury by HA treatment may be due to the accumulation of putrescine and proline induced primarily by activating the catabolism of endogenous arginine.

Preharvest L-arginine treatment induced postharvest disease resistance to Botrysis cinerea in tomato fruits.

L-arginine is the precursor of nitric oxide (NO). In order to examine the influence of L-arginine on tomato fruit resistance, preharvest green mature tomato fruits (Solanum lycopersicum cv. No. 4 Zhongshu) were treated with 0.5, 1, and 5 mM L-arginine. The reduced lesion size (in diameter) on fruit caused by Botrytis cinerea, as well as activities of phenylalanine ammonia-lyase (PAL), Chitinase (CHI), ß-1,3-glucanase (GLU), and polyphenoloxidase (PPO), was compared between L-arginine treated fruits and untreated fruits. We found that induced resistance increased and reached the highest level at 3-6 days after treatment. Endogenous NO concentrations were positively correlated with PAL, PPO, CHI, and GLU activities after treatment with Pearson coefficients of 0.71, 0.94, 0.97, and 0.87, respectively. These results indicate that arginine induces disease resistance via its effects on NO biosynthesis and defensive enzyme activity.

[Comparative study on selenium and amino acids content in leaves of planted and wild Scutellaria baicalensis].

Scutellaria baicalensis is one of the most important Chinese herbs. It is widely used in Asian medicine to improve impaired brain function and to treat headaches, and used to treat prostate cancer. It is also known to be anti-inflammatory and antifungal, and also seems to have antiviral properties, including possible effectiveness against HIV. Scutellaria baicalensis tea and other products are in development. In the present study, the content of selenium (Se) in leaves of planted and wild Scutellaria baicalensis was determined by fluorescence photometer. The contents of 18 kinds of amino acids in the leaves of planted and wild Scutellaria baicalensis were determined with amino acids instruments. The results showed that the two kinds of leaves were rich in Se content, and the content of Se in planted Scutellaria baicalensis (0.051 microg x g(-1)) was not significantly different from that in wild one (0.051 microg x g(-1), alpha = 0.05). The amino acids, of which the total content was up to 14.62% and 10.25% separately, were rich in both planted and wild Scutellaria baicalensis. Among the 18 kinds of amino acids, aspartic acid, glutamic acid and leucine were comparatively high in leaves of planted and wild Scutellaria baicalensis. There are 8 kinds of amino acids essential to human body, which were higher in leaves of planted Scutellaria baicalensis than those of wild one. This study, for the first time, determined Se and amino acids content in Scutellaria baicalensis and concluded that the leaves of planted type have Se and amino acids content not lower or higher than that of wild type, and the planted type could be a good substitute of wild type in the development of Scutellaria baicalensis products. This study also provided useful data for explaining the multifunction of Scutellaria baicalensis and theological basis for developing its medical and edible value.

Improving zinc content and antioxidant activity in transgenic tomato plants with expression of mouse metallothionein-I by mt-I gene.

Metallothioneins (MTs), as a family of low-molecular-weight, cysteine-rich, and metal-binding proteins, show potential for utilization in functional food. Tomato plants were transformed with gene constructs that contained mt-I encoding the mouse MT-I, similar in sense orientation with the constitutively active double 35S promoter from cauliflower mosaic virus. Three independent transformants, which had copies of the gene in their genomes, were obtained. In these transgenic lines, high-level expression of MT-I, high zinc content, and some antioxidant enzyme activities were detected in leaves. The average zinc content in transgenic tomato leaves was 32.7 mg/100 g FW, which about 1.6 times higher than that in wild-type. The superoxide dismutase activity was also higher (68.6, 66.9, and 66.1 U/g FW in the three transformants) than that in wild-type (57.4 U/g FW). In particular, the levels of superoxide free radical scanvenging in the three transformants were 14.2%, 14.6%, and 13.7%, respectively, which about 1.5 times higher than that in control (5.6%). Transgenic MT tomato may potentially be used as an antioxidant and for zinc supplementation.