The intertidal red algal genus Porphyra is found on rocky shores worldwide. In the Northern Hemisphere the genus is well studied but there is a paucity of data on southern hemisphere Porphyra and even less on New Zealand Porphyra. The species� taxonomy has been undergoing revision since the late 1990�s, when it was discovered that the main species P. columbina and P. lilliputana reported for New Zealand were a combination of several endemic species. These species are found from the low to the high intertidal watermark; hence they are exposed to fluctuating stresses such as desiccation, temperature, high light and UV radiation. Algae have evolved a number of mechanisms to adapt to naturally changing increasing abiotic conditions, such as accumulation of screening pigments and changes in antioxidant metabolism during light stress. For terrestrial plants, polyamines (small aliphatic amines) have been shown to be involved in protecting cells from damage under conditions of stress including UV-B radiation; such mechanisms have yet to be identified in algae. The overall aim of this study was to determine the importance of cellular processes in shaping the community structure of Porphyra on a wave-exposed shore on the east coast of the South Island, New Zealand. Porphyra distribution and community structure was assessed by regular monthly monitoring of presence and absence of Porphyra along four transect lines at the site. Enviromnental information was recorded to determine the effects of temperature, light, UV radiation, humidity and wind on Porphyra�s spatial and temporal distribution. Regular tissue samples were taken for species identification by the application of primers, which were specifically designed during this study. P. cinnamomea and Porphyra spec. "ROS 54" were identified as dominant species present almost throughout the year with a pronounced maximum in presence during late winter and spring, and some weeks of absence during April or May. The two dominant species were recorded from the low to the high intertidal shore, but the mid intertidal was identified as the preferred habitat. Other species that were found were rare and only present for a few months in a very restricted area. It was hypothesised that free radical generation and antioxidant metabolism are associated with desiccation tolerance in Porphyra. An attempt was made to investigate the impact of desiccation stress on Porphyra. The extraction process of antioxidants was problematic and no reproducible results could be obtained. It was attempted to investigate the spatial distribution of spores and conchocelis of different Porphyra species in the field, and determine if those found at Brighton Beach are species-specific in their morphology. This indicated that the two main Porphyra species at Brighton Beach not only prefer to occupy the same habitat but that they also have a morphologically similar conchocelis phase. Mechanisms on a cellular level such as polyamine metabolism affected by environmental (abiotic) stresses are related to the alga�s ability to adapt to stress and therefore can have an effect on Porphyra�s distribution along the shore and its presence throughout the year. The depletion of the ozone layer has become an important issue as the effects of increased UV radiation on the environment, especially the intertidal habitat, are revealed. Marine macrophytes possess the main three. polyamines: putrescine, spermidine and spermine of varying levels. For the few species studied, Rhodophyta generally contain higher levels of polyamines than Chlorophyta, while polyamine levels for the one heterokontophyte analysed were between Chlorophyta and Rhodophyta. Levels of the three most common polyamines (putrescine, spermidine, spermine) were determined in P. cinnamomea under controlled UV exposure. Tissue discs were exposed to visible light (PAR), PAR and UV-A or PAR, UV-A and UV-B radiation. Discs exposed to PAR and PAR and UV-A showed little change in polyamine levels over a six day trial period, while discs exposed to PAR, UV-A and UV-B showed a significant increase in free, bound soluble and bound insoluble polyamines over the same period of time. Correspondingly levels of ADC and ODC, two enzymes involved in polyamine synthesis, were measured. ODC levels changed little while ADC levels increased significantly during UV-B treatment, indicating that under UV-B stress polyamines are mainly synthesized via the ADC pathway. The experimental set-up and process of this study has not been applied in macroalgal polyamine research and results obtained are the first indication that increased levels of polyamines are involved in protection and/or protection mechanisms in macrophytic algae to prevent UV-B damage.

Bibliography: leaves 200-225 / xxiii, 225 leaves, [39] leaves of plates : ill ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, 1984

Orientador: Renato de Mello Prado / Banca: Cid Naudi Silva Campos / Banca: Priscila Lupino Gratão / Resumo: A deficiência oculta de potássio (K) é comum em feijoeiro, mas o silício (Si) quando fornecido via solução nutritiva (raiz) ou via foliar pode aliviar os estresses ocasionados pela deficiência deste nutriente, entretanto, isso ainda não é conhecido nesta espécie. A partir disso, objetivou-se verificar a melhor fonte e concentração de Si aplicado via foliar, e se essa fonte fornecida via solução nutritiva e foliar é eficiente em mitigar os estresses por deficiência de potássio em feijoeiro. Para isso, foram desenvolvidos dois experimentos em casa de vegetação com plantas de feijão cultivadas em sistema hidropônico. Um estudo preliminar visou definir a melhor fonte e concentração de Si aplicados via foliar. O segundo experimento foi em esquema fatorial 2x3, com solução nutritiva deficiente (0,2 mmol L-1 de K) e suficiente (6 mmol L-1 de K) em potássio, e o fornecimento de Si foi via solução nutritiva (2 mmol L-1 de Si), foliar (5,36 mmol L-1 de Si) e controle (0 mmol L-1 de Si), disposto em delineamento inteiramente casualizado, em 4 repetições. Foram avaliados parâmetros fisiológicos, nutricionais e crescimento das plantas. E verificou-se que a pulverização foliar com Si foi viável agronomicamente para o feijoeiro, destacando-se o silicato de sódio e potássio estabilizado na concentração de 5,36 mmol L-1. A deficiência de K causou prejuízo no desenvolvimento das plantas de feijão que não receberam Si. O Si mitigou estresses por deficiência de K no feijoeiro devido a melhoria d... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: Undetected potassium (K) deficiency is common in bean plants. Although silicon (Si) supplied via nutrient solution (roots) or foliar application may alleviate the resulting stress, it remains unknown in this species. This pioneering study aimed to determine the best source and concentration of leaf-applied Si, and whether providing it via nutrient solution and foliar application is efficient in alleviating K deficiency stress in bean plants. To that end, two experiments were conducted in a greenhouse with bean plants grown in a hydroponic system. Due to the lack of reliable information for the bean plant, a preliminary study aimed at determining the best leaf-applied source and concentration of Si. The second experiment used a completely randomized 2x3 factorial design, with deficient (0.2 mmol L-1 of K) and sufficient potassium solution (6 mmol L-1 of K), Si supplied via nutrient solution (2 mmol L-1 of Si), foliar application (5.36 mmol L -1 of Si) and controls (0 mmol L-1 of Si), and 4 repetitions. Physiological, nutritional and plant growth parameters were measured. Foliar spraying with Si was agronomically feasible for the bean plant, with silicate of sodium and potassium stabilized at a concentration of 5.36 mmol L -1 . K deficiency without the addition of Si compromised plant growth. Si mitigated K deficiency stress in the bean plant due to enhanced nutritional, physiological and growth variables, underscoring Si supply via nutrient solution over foliar application, al... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Mestre

Orientador: Fernando Broetto / Banca: Roberto Lyra Villas Bôas / Banca: Marcelo Leonardo / Banca: Douglas José Marques / Banca: Maria Marcia Pereira Sartori / Resumo: O amendoim é uma cultura de interesse econômico para o estado de São Paulo, principalmente para renovação de canaviais e pastagens na região oeste do estado. Nesta região, os crescentes custos de produção do amendoim acompanhados por baixo rendimento por área devido à suscetibilidade às variações climáticas são influências negativas e contribuem para desestimular a produção dessa cultura. Nesse âmbito, a associação com fungos micorrízicos arbusculares (FMAs) e suplementação com bioestimulante a base de extrato solúvel de algas (Ascophyllum nodosum) (ESA) podem promover melhorias no crescimento e desenvolvimento da planta, além de atenuarem os efeitos negativos provocados pela deficiência hídrica. As plantas foram cultivadas em estufa agrícola, com monitoramento das relações hídricas além do estudo de trocas gasosas, análise de crescimento, análises microbiológicas e de produção, bem como das respostas metabólicas das plantas em função dos tratamentos. A presente pesquisa valida os benefícios para a cultura do amendoim quando em associação com os FMAs e / ou com a suplementação com o ESA, pois além de incrementarem o crescimento e taxa de assimilação líquida de carbono nas plantas em condições hidratadas, mantiveram o status hídrico das plantas e proveram também o acionamento de enzimas do complexo antioxidativo nas plantas em condições de deficiência hídrica moderada e severa. / Abstract: Water is essential element for plant development and its absence or deficiency induces physiological changes with severe consequences for productivity. Peanut is a culture of economic interest to the State of São Paulo especially in the western region. In this region, the increasing of production costs in peanuts is associate by low yield due to susceptibility to climate variations, such as dry seasons. They are negative influences and do not contribute to production in that crop. In this context, the association with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) and supplementation with biostimulant based on soluble algal extract (Ascophyllum nodosum) (ESA) can promote improvements in plant growth and development, as well as attenuate the negative effects caused by water deficiency. The plants grown in a greenhouse with monitoring of water relations in addition to the study of gas exchange parameters, growth analysis, microbiological analysis, production, and metabolic responses of plants in the treatments. The present study validates the benefits for peanut cultivation with fungus and/or seaweed extract supplementation. Plants under hydrated conditions had better performance in growth and carbon assimilation rate and under conditions of moderate and severe water deficiency.of, they maintained water status of the plants... / Doutor

Made available in DSpace on 2016-09-27T13:40:04Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2015-10-09. Added 1 bitstream(s) on 2016-09-27T13:45:14Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 000868507_20161020.pdf: 285189 bytes, checksum: b85306372b47acfd2d205957d3ba6810 (MD5) Bitstreams deleted on 2016-10-21T11:52:44Z: 000868507_20161020.pdf,. Added 1 bitstream(s) on 2016-10-21T11:53:23Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 000868507.pdf: 2029237 bytes, checksum: d3b1875d2d1132ea3143df460c8cda27 (MD5) / A aplicação energética dos subprodutos da cana-de-açúcar faz dessa cultura uma das líderes em investimentos do agronegócio internacional. Para suprir a demanda mundial e expandir o setor sucroenergético, estratégias de engenharia genética que possam gerar plantas transgênicas mais tolerantes a estreses bióticos e abióticos podem ser uma alternativa para ganhos de produtividade. Um dos mecanismos mais utilizados em plantas para minimizar os efeitos causados por estresses é o acúmulo de solutos. Entre eles, pode ser destacada a família de oligossacarídeos da rafinose (RFOs). Ela é formada a partir da adição sucessiva de radicais galactosil a uma molécula de sacarose, em reação catalisada pelas enzimas galactinol sintase (GolS), rafinose sintase e estaquiose sintase. A GolS é considerada o passo-chave de regulação da síntese de RFOs em plantas modelo. Embora a compreensão das etapas moleculares da produção de RFOs e sua modulação por estresses abióticos tenham potencial de contribuir na tolerância a estresses em plantas, esta estratégia é pouco compreendida em gramíneas, entre elas a cana-de-açúcar. Neste sentido, o presente trabalho pretende compreender aspectos moleculares relativos à produção de RFOs em cana-de-açúcar e sua relação com estresses abióticos e desenvolvimento. Para tanto, foram avaliados transcricionalmente genes relacionados a síntese de RFOs em cana sob estresse hídrico, bem como obteve-se plantas transgênicas com expressão constitutiva do gene CaGolS2, uma galactinol sintase de cafeeiro. Sob estresse hídrico, gene ScGolS1 teve seu nível transcricional reduzido em folhas e induzido em colmo. ScRFS1 nos dois tecidos tem o padrão transcricional diretamente relacionado ao aumento da severidade do estresse, e o mesmo é observado em ScSTS1. Foram também obtidos 10 eventos transgênicos de cana-de-açúcar com a região codificante do gene CaGolS2 de Coffea arabica, dos quais... / Bioenergy application of sugarcane byproducts are making this crop one of the most important in the international agribusiness investments. To meet global demand and expand the sugarcane sector, genetic engineering strategies generating transgenic plants more tolerance to biotic and abiotic stresses is a promising to improve productivity. One of the most relevant mechanism related to stress tolerance in plants involves the accumulation of distinct solutes. The Raffinose Oligosaccharids Family synthesis starts from the successive addition of galactosyl radicals to a sucrose molecule, in a reaction catalyzed by galactinol synthase (GolS), raffinose synthase and stachyose synthase. GolS plays a key role in RFOs production in model plants. Although the stress-responsive action of RFOs may improve abiotic stress tolerance in plants, these mechanisms are almost completely unknown in grasses, like sugarcane. In this context, this study aims to understand molecular aspects of RFOs synthesis and its relation with abiotic stresses. We have evaluated the transcriptional level of genes related RFOs synthesis under water stress and we produced transgenic plants constitutively expressing a coffee galactinol synthase (CaGolS2). Under water stress, ScGolS1 was downregulated in leaves, but upregulated in stems. ScRFS1 and ScSTS1 were upregulated in both tissues, in a direct correlation between transcription level and stress. We produced 10 transgenic events containing the coding region of CaGolS2; in six events, the transgene were transcriptionally active. Transgenic plants presented differences in morphology and carbon assimilation when compared to non-transgenic controls. Overall, we inferred that the stress-responsive pattern of RFO synthesis genes might help carbon relocation during water stress. Raffinose and stachyose seems to have greater impact than galactinol in this process. Furthermore, CaGolS2 transgenic plants have promising traits for...

Plants possess a complex and poorly understood network of defence mechanisms that enable them to counteract the effects of abiotic and biotic stress. Aphid phloem feeding is source of biotic stress in plants. Russian wheat aphid and Bird Cherry-Oat aphid feeding cause significant losses in the annual wheat crop, and control by conventional methods such as pesticide application, has proved to be ineffective. Infestation by the Russian wheat aphid has a particularly devastating effect in South Africa. Aphid-resistant wheat cultivars have been identified but an incomplete understanding of the mechanism of the plant’s resistance thwarts the development of improved cultivars. A two-dimensional gel electrophoresis method was developed, partially optimised and validated in order to determine the effect of Russian wheat aphid and Bird Cherry-Oat aphid phloem feeding on the Betta and Betta DN wheat proteome. Differentially expressed proteins that were up or down regulated more than two fold were identified using PDQuest™ Basic software and matched to known wheat proteins stored in the SwissProt protein database on the basis of their molecular mass and isolectric point. Initial analysis of the differential protein expression of Betta and Betta DN wheat in response to Russian wheat aphid and Bird Cherry-Oat aphid phloem feeding at different growth stages revealed that younger plants display higher levels of resistance than older plants. Feeding by the Bird-Cherry Oat aphid does not result in the upregulation of proteins implicated in a defence response, which indicates that the damage incurred by the plant due to feeding by this aphid is not enough to trigger a classic defence response. Feeding by the more damaging Russian wheat aphid resulted in a stress response in susceptible wheat cultivar Betta, and a defence response in resistant wheat cultivar Betta DN. The infestation of Betta DN resulted in the upregulation of putative thaumatins and amylase trypsin inhibitors, indicating that the Betta DN resistance response could be due to the combined effect of protease inhibitors that discourage aphid phloem feeding and the activation of the salicylic acid and jasmonic acid plant defence pathways.

M.A. / The process of sudden hospitalization is often experienced as a negative and traumatic event in people's lives. Traditionally, these traumatic events are dealt with by the medical professionals in the hospital setting. Due to time constraints and the urgent nature ofthe medical crisis, the patient is often left in very capable hands but the family is often left out ofthis process. This type of crisis throws a family into a tumult of disorganization. Parsonnet and Weinstein (1987), state that when patients are critically ill, their families suffer extreme emotional distress, often without the support of medical staffwho must I focus on the needs ofthe patient first. This study focuses on the family from a systemic perspective and looks at the effects on the whole system when one member becomes critically ill. This type of traumatic event can therefore lead to the family experiencing feelings such as fear, helplessness, shock, distress and a total lack ofcontrol. Many ofthese feelings are common to most traumatic events. Three case studies are examined in which families describe their experience ofICU and sudden hospitalization and a qualitative analysis is then conducted to identify common themes among the three families. This research examines how the fields ofsupportive psychotherapy and emergency medicine can be combined in order to create an environment in which not only the patient's needs are attended to, but where the family system's needs can be supported and guided through an otherwise very traumatic experience. The concepts oftrauma and crisis will be discussed, as vyell as how this relates to family systems theory. The experiences offamilies will be discussed in detail and the possible methods that can be employed in order to support a family through this medical crisis. This study is limited in the fact that only one interview was conducted but this is an exploratory study and is therefore only the beginning of an interesting area ofresearch.

No description available.

Please read the abstract in the 00front part of this document / Thesis (PhD (Botany))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Plant Science / unrestricted

Plant cysteine proteinase inhibitors or also called phytocystatins inhibit the action of cysteine proteinases in plants. These proteinases are involved in many developmental processes by degrading proteins. In this study possible effects of an exogenous oryzacystatin-I (OC-I) expressed in transformed tobacco has been investigated. By challenging OC-I expressing and non-expressing tobacco with drought and heat stress, OC-I transcription and translation were not affected in OC-I expressing plants and plant extracts from stressed plants containing the inhibitor inhibited papain activity in vitro. Further, plant growth and photosynthesis was not greatly different under the selected growth conditions in both plant types under stress and non-stress conditions. However, OC-I expressing plants showed slightly lower photosynthetic rate, were shorter and had a higher lower dry mass production under non-stress condition. By applying cDNA Representational Difference Analysis (cDNA-RDA) to detect differentially expressed genes in the two types of plants, a gene coding for the light harvesting chlorophyll a/b binding protein gene (lhcb1) of photosystem II (LHC II) was isolated from non-OCI expressing plants. Northern blot analysis showed lower transcript accumulation of the lhcb gene in OCI-expressing plants both under non-stress and stress conditions, which was accompanied by lower chlorophyll content in OC-I expressing plants. Furthermore, plants benefited from OC-I expression by protection of a variety of expressed proteins against degradation. Identification of possible target cysteine proteinases for OC-I in tobacco resulted in the isolation, cloning and characterization of two new papain-like cysteine proteinases from tobacco designated NtCP1 and NtCP2. NtCP1 was expressed only in senescent leaves and it was not induced in mature green leaves upon exposure to drought or heat stress. NtCP1 has therefore a possible potential as a developmental senescence marker in tobacco. In contrast, NtCP2, which was expressed in mature green leaves, has a high similarity to KDEL-tailed cysteine proteinases that are involved in programmed cell death. Both drought and heat decreased NtCP2 transcript abundance in mature green leaves. Overall, this study has provided evidence that expression of exogenous OC-I does not significantly improve plant performance in tobacco in terms of physiological traits under drought and heat stress but provides protection in terms of stability of protein expression by possibly interacting with endogenous tobacco cysteine proteinases. Further detailed studies are suggested on the interaction of endogenous cysteine proteinases and exogenous phytocystatins to elucidate in more detail the type of interaction. Copyright 2006, University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria. Please cite as follows: Beyene, G 2006, Gene expression and plant performance in oryzacystatin-I expressing transformed tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum L. cv Samsun) plants under abiotic stress, PhD thesis, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, viewed yymmdd < http://upetd.up.ac.za/thesis/available/etd-12052006-144409 / > / Thesis (PhD (Botany))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Plant Science / unrestricted