TOR in plants: Multidimensional regulators of plant growth and signaling pathways.

Target Of Rapamycin (TOR) represents a ubiquitous kinase complex that has emerged as a central regulator of cell growth and metabolism in nearly all eukaryotic organisms. TOR is an evolutionarily conserved protein kinase, functioning as a central signaling hub that integrates diverse internal and external cues to regulate a multitude of biological processes. These processes collectively exert significant influence on plant growth, development, nutrient assimilation, photosynthesis, fruit ripening, and interactions with microorganisms. Within the plant domain, the TOR complex comprises three integral components: TOR, RAPTOR, and LST8. This comprehensive review provides insights into various facets of the TOR protein, encompassing its origin, structure, function, and the regulatory and signaling pathways operative in photosynthetic organisms. Additionally, we explore future perspectives related to this pivotal protein kinase.

Exploring lipid signaling in plant physiology: From cellular membranes to environmental adaptation.

Lipids have evolved as versatile signaling molecules that regulate a variety of physiological processes in plants. Convincing evidence highlights their critical role as mediators in a wide range of plant processes required for survival, growth, development, and responses to environmental conditions such as water availability, temperature changes, salt, pests, and diseases. Understanding lipid signaling as a critical process has helped us expand our understanding of plant biology by explaining how plants sense and respond to environmental cues. Lipid signaling pathways constitute a complex network of lipids, enzymes, and receptors that coordinate important cellular responses and stressing plant biology's changing and adaptable traits. Plant lipid signaling involves a wide range of lipid classes, including phospholipids, sphingolipids, oxylipins, and sterols, each of which contributes differently to cellular communication and control. These lipids function not only as structural components, but also as bioactive molecules that transfer signals. The mechanisms entail the production of lipid mediators and their detection by particular receptors, which frequently trigger downstream cascades that affect gene expression, cellular functions, and overall plant growth. This review looks into lipid signaling in plant physiology, giving an in-depth look and emphasizing its critical function as a master regulator of vital activities.

In Silico Identification and Characterization of Fatty Acid Desaturase (FAD) Genes in Argania spinosa L. Skeels: Implications for Oil Quality and Abiotic Stress.

Fatty acid desaturase (FAD) is the key enzyme that leads to the formation of unsaturated fatty acids by introducing double bonds into hydrocarbon chains, and it plays a critical role in plant lipid metabolism. However, no data are available on enzyme-associated genes in argan trees. In addition, a candidate gene approach was adopted to identify and characterize the gene sequences of interest that are potentially involved in oil quality and abiotic stress. Based on phylogenetic analyses, 18 putative FAD genes of Argania spinosa L. (AsFAD) were identified and assigned to three subfamilies: stearoyl-ACP desaturase (SAD), Δ-12 desaturase (FAD2/FAD6), and Δ-15 desaturase (FAD3/FAD7). Furthermore, gene structure and motif analyses revealed a conserved exon-intron organization among FAD members belonging to the various oil crops studied, and they exhibited conserved motifs within each subfamily. In addition, the gene structure shows a wide variation in intron numbers, ranging from 0 to 8, with two highly conserved intron phases (0 and 1). The AsFAD and AsSAD subfamilies consist of three (H(X)2-4H, H(X)2-3HH, and H/Q (X)2-3HH) and two (EEN(K)RHG and DEKRHE) conserved histidine boxes, respectively. A set of primer pairs were designed for each FAD gene, and tested on DNA extracted from argan leaves, in which all amplicons of the expected size were produced. These findings of candidate genes in A spinosa L. will provide valuable knowledge that further enhances our understanding of the potential roles of FAD genes in the quality of oil and abiotic stress in the argan tree.

Lipidomic Profiling of Argania spinosa L. (Skeels) Following Drought Stress.

Argan tree is frequently constrained by environmental stresses, especially drought. Lipids play crucial roles in stress adaptation, but lipidomic profiles in Argania spinosa under drought stress is largely unknown. The aim of this study was to identify lipid components potentially responsive to drought stress from leaves in the four argan ecotypes. For this, non-polar metabolite profiling was carried out using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. We identified 228 components, the majority of which belonged to fatty acids and prenol lipids classes. The principal component analysis and partial least-squares discriminant analysis were applied to the lipidomics data to determine the component changes between all ecotypes. Based on the common components present in all ecotypes under contrast conditions, 21 metabolites belong fatty acids were identified with significant change. It was concluded that the majority of these components show up-accumulation in their content and involve in different pathways, especially in alpha-linolenic acid metabolism. The findings of this study provided new insights into the lipidomic study of argan leaves under drought stress and may be eventually contribute to overcoming drought; in addition, this could serve as a base for future studies on transcriptomic and proteomic to enhance the drought tolerance of forest trees.

In Silico development of new SSRs primer for aquaporin linked to drought tolerance in plants.

Plants are exposed to various stress factors including biotic and abiotic stresses. Drought is a limiting factor that minimizes the development and growth of several plants in arid and semi-arid regions. Stress response is usually occur at different levels, Morphological, physiological and biochemical while at the molecular level a large number of genes are involved. This study aims at developing a new SSR primer for aquaporin related to drought stress in plants. A total of 177 complete coding sequences (CDS) available in the NCBI database are downloaded. After analyzing with BLAST, 163 sequences are selected. 1294 SSR derived from these sequences are characterized with MISA and indicating that all sequences contained SSRs. The most abundant SSR has been tetra-nucleotide repeat motif (36%) and among all the tetra-nucleotide repeats, the motif AAAG/CTTT was the most common type, whereas in tri-nucleotide, the motif CCG/CGG has been the predominate type. By using Primer3, 1120 primer pairs are generated and after analyzing, only 735 non redundant primer pairs that present the good characteristics are selected. Among them, some of the pairs of primers are randomly selected and validated on DNA of various species using PCR and agarose gel.