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No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

Plant-pathogenic fungi harbor various specialized metabolites including diterpenoids that function as hormones and virulence factors. The fungus Magnaporthe oryzae is the causal agent of rice blast disease and can infect over 50 grass species. We demonstrate that the rice blast fungus encodes two diterpene synthases that produce normal pimara-8,15-diene and manoyl oxide scaffolds. Phylogenetic analysis of diterpene synthases among rice blast pathotypes showed functional conservation of the two core diterpene synthases amongst all pathotypes and suggests further expansion in select grass species. These insights into the blast fungal terpenome may inform efforts to counteract deleterious phytopathogens in crucial food crops.

Due to the rise of monoculture in agricultural production, insect biodiversity has sharply declined in agroecosystems due to the reduction in host plant biodiversity. This includes declines in populations of native pollinators, which reduces the ambient pollination services received by crops and increases the reliance on managed pollinators like European honeybees (Apis mellifera). One way to combat this decline in pollination services is to develop crop varieties that have high attraction to pollinators, this can have a dual effect of inducing native pollinators to move deep into agricultural fields from adjacent habitats like woodland or meadow strips, as well as retaining managed honeybees within crop fields and improving their efficacy. Attraction can be determined by many traits including floral morphology, pigmentation, and chemical cues like fragrance. Under higher ambient temperature the floral temperature rises, resulting in several potential effects. A warmer flower is likely to emit a larger volume of volatile compounds, as well as to be an attractive resting place for ectothermic pollinators, and yet high floral temperature may reduce pollen viability. The goal of this study is to first assess the effects of floral traits, particularly morphology and pigmentation, on floral temperature relative to ambient conditions, and secondarily, how flower temperature differentials alongside floral traits may affect pollinator foraging preferences. Our findings indicate that floral morphology and pigmentation both influence floral temperature differentials, and that floral morphology, pigmentation, and temperature differentials influence visitation by native pollinators (bumblebees and sweat bees). Floral traits and their influence on temperature are potentially important targets for the improvement of pollinator visitation to sunflower cultivars and the improvement of yields.

Human society has benefited greatly from plant secondary metabolites, often utilizing a variety of compounds as dyes, food additives, and drugs. In particular, pharmaceutical development has benefited greatly from plant secondary metabolites. One example of this utility is paclitaxel, a highly substituted diterpene approved in the treatment of breast cancer, ovarian cancer, non-small cell lung cancer, and the AIDSrelated Kaposi’s sarcoma. Demand of paclitaxel is likely to increase, due to the current examination of paclitaxel in numerous clinical trials against a variety of other cancers. Taxus cell culture represents a production source of paclitaxel to meet future demand. However, paclitaxel production through Taxus cell culture is often variable and low. Targeted metabolic engineering of Taxus to produce superior paclitaxelaccumulating lines is a viable strategy to address variable and low yields. To facilitate the production of genetically engineered Taxus cell lines, stable transformation is required to examine the long-term effect of gene expression in vitro. Additionally, suitable transient transformation systems are necessary to characterize novel Taxus genes related to paclitaxel accumulation. A transient particle bombardment-mediated transformation protocol was developed to introduce transgenes into Taxus cells in vitro. Additionally, agroinfiltration in Nicotiana benthamiana was examined as a system to express genes related to paclitaxel biosynthesis and lead to the accumulation of the first dedicated taxane, taxa- 4(5), 11(12)-diene. In regard to stable transformation, an Agrobacterium-mediated transformation protocol was developed, though this method requires further optimization for reliability and increased transformation efficiency. These transformation technologies will aid in the creation of elite paclitaxel-accumulating Taxus cell lines.

Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi are ubiquitous symbionts of terrestrial plant species with associations predominantly characterized as mutualistic. In addition to well-documented enhancement of host growth response, more recent analyses have demonstrated the conferral of host benefits under numerous biotic and abiotic stressors. However, much of the established evidence originates from studies involving limited AM fungal diversity. Accordingly, this study sought to evaluate the potential effects of inoculation on plant host physiological traits within a growth chamber environment, investigate potential correlations between host trait responses, & assess the degree of phylogenetic signal observed in trait responses due to the presence of AM fungi. Overall, inoculation did not result in meaningfully different effects in host trait responses relative to controls. The effects of unique inoculum identity were also not meaningfully different from one another, although some instances of deviation from this trend were observed. Trait correlations were also largely absent after accounting for species relatedness. Further, model selection criteria tended to endorse an effect of unique inoculum identity but was not suggestive of effects due to evolutionary history. The presently described experimental implementation of AM phylogenetic diversity, comprising 36 taxa across 8 families, contributes to a greater contextual understanding of the AM symbiosis and offers an approach suitable for future studies.

No description available.

No description available.