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Abstract Transition metal-catalyzed addition of organometallics to aryl(alkyl)alkynes has been well known to proceed with the regioselectivity in forming a carbon–carbon bond at the alkyl-substituted carbon (β-addition). Herein, the reverse regiochemistry with high selectivity in giving 1,1-diarylalkenes (α-addition) was realized in the reaction of arylboronic acids with aryl(alkyl)alkynes by use of a rhodium catalyst coordinated with a chiral diene ligand, whereas the arylation of the same alkynes proceeded with the usual regioselectivity (β-addition) in the presence of a rhodium/DM-BINAP catalyst. The regioselectivity can be switched by the choice of ligands on the rhodium catalysts. This reverse regioselectivity also enabled the catalytic asymmetric synthesis of phoenix-like axially chiral alkylidene dihydroanthracenes with high enantioselectivity through an α-addition/1,4-migration/cyclization sequence.

Benzothiadiazole (BTH) is a plant resistance inducer that effectively delays ripening and senescence in fruits. To understand its possible mechanism, transcriptomics and metabolomics analyses were performed on banana (Musa spp.) fruit treated with BTH after their inoculation with the fungal pathogen Colletotrichum musae. A total of 1,747 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified, and 1,160 were up- and 587 downregulated between the BTH and control conditions. These DEGs were highly enriched in metabolic pathways related to disease resistance, such as phenylpropanoid biosynthesis, flavonoids, and starch and sucrose metabolism. A metabolome analysis identified 138 differentially accumulated metabolites (DAMs) of which 73 were upregulated and 65 downregulated between the BTH and control conditions. Flavonoids were significantly upregulated DAMs. Transcriptome and metabolome analyses showed that the lignin biosynthesis and flavonoid biosynthesis pathways played important roles in the disease resistance of banana fruit induced by BTH by upregulating the expression of PAL, 4CL, PER, CHS, FLS, and FL3H. Moreover, WRKY transcription factors (TFs) also played key roles in this process of resistance by mediating genes related to disease resistance, such as PR1, PR1c, TLPH, PTI5, and other genes. Our results suggested that the BTH treatment significantly changed the expression of transcripts and metabolites related to the hormone signaling, secondary metabolism, disease resistance, and key TFs, which induced the disease resistance and delayed the ripening process. The insights into these molecular mechanisms also provide potential targets for genetic or chemical approaches to further enhance fruit quality and resistance.

Throughout history, medicinal plants have been used to treat different ailments. About 70 to 80% of the world population rely on medicinal plants for healthcare and some use it for income generation. The annual sale of medicinal plants increases over time. In plants, Berberis vulgaris f. lycium (Royle) Parsa (Berberis lycium), also called boxthoran barberry, Indian barberry, or Indian lyceum contains key alkaloids such as berberine, camptothecin, koumidine, salutaridine, luteanine, palmatine, and protopine. Significant steroidal compounds include sitosterol and B-sitosterol. The plant is rich in flavonoids such as isorhamnetin, formononetin-7-O-glucoside, and velutin and anthocyanins such as cyanidin-3-glucoside and delphinidin-3-glucoside. It also includes phenolic compounds such as chlorogenic acid, caffeic acid, vanillic acid, and quercetin. B. lycium possesses dual utility due to its delicious fruit and has high value with known history in treatment of different disease and use in folklore medicines. Ethnobotanical surveys reveal that the B. lycium is used to treat jaundice, hepatitis, typhoid, fever, tuberculosis disorders, eye lotion, chronic diarrhoea, tonic, skin diseases, blood purifier, piles, eye infections, gum problems, diabetes, and kidney problems. Experimental studies have demonstrated that the B. lycium possesses antibacterial, antihyperlipidaemia, antidiabetic, anticolitis/inflammatory, anticancer activities, antiviral activities, and anthelminthic activities. According to our literature survey, there is no review with a mechanistic summary on B. lycium; therefore, the current review is an effort to provide the available literature on B. lycium in summary form for future research.

Salicylic acid (SA) is a well-studied phenolic plant hormone that plays an important role in plant defense against the hemi-biothrophic and biothrophic pathogens and depends on the living cells of host for the successful infection. In this study, a pathogenesis test was performed between Vitis davidii and V. vinifera cultivars against grape white rot disease (Coniella diplodiella). V. davidii was found to be resistant against this disease. SA contents were found to be higher in the resistant grape cultivar after different time points. RNA-seq analysis was conducted on susceptible grapevine cultivars after 12, 24, and 48 h of SA application with the hypothesis that SA may induce defense genes in susceptible cultivars. A total of 511 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified from the RNA-seq data, including some important genes, VvWRKY1/2, VvNPR1, VvTGA2, and VvPR1, for the SA defense pathway. DEGs related to phytohormone signal transduction and flavonoid biosynthetic pathways were also upregulated. The quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) results of the significantly expressed transcripts were found to be consistent with the transcriptome data, with a high correlation between the two analyses. The pathogenesis-related gene 1 (VvPR1), which is an important marker gene for plant defense, was selected for further promoter analysis. The promoter sequence showed that it contains some important cis-elements (W-box, LS7, as-1, and TCA-element) to recruit the transcription factors VvWRKY, VvNPR1, and VvTGA2 to express the VvPR1 gene in response to SA treatment. Furthermore, the VvPR1 promoter was serially deleted into different fragments (−1,837, −1,443, −1,119, −864, −558, −436, and −192 ) bp and constructed vectors with the GUS reporter gene. Deletion analysis revealed that the VvPR1 promoter between −1837 bp to −558 bp induced significant GUS expression with respect to the control. On the basis of these results, the −558 bp region was assumed to be an important part of the VvPR1 promoter, and this region contained the important cis-elements related to SA, such as TCA-element (−1,472 bp), LS7 (−1,428 bp), and as-1 (−520 bp), that recruit the TFs and induce the expression of the VvPR1 gene. This study expanded the available information regarding SA-induced defense in susceptible grapes and recognized the molecular mechanisms through which this defense might be mediated.

Zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO-NPs) have been produced by physical and chemical methods. Here, the comparative evaluation of both chemically-synthesised ZnO-NPs (C-ZNPs) and in-vitro cultured S. marianum mediated green-synthesised ZnO-NPs (G-ZNPs) were investigated on seed germination frequency, root and shoot growth, callus induction and biochemical profile of medicinally important plant Silybum marianum. Of all the treatments, callus-mediated ZnO-NPs gave optimum results for seed germination (65%), plantlet’s root length (4.3 cm), shoot length (5.3 cm) and fresh and dry weights (220.4 g L−1 and 21.23 g L−1, respectively). Similarly, the accumulation of phenolic (12.3 µg/mg DW) and flavonoid (2.8 µg/mg DW) contents were also enhanced in callus cultures treated with G-ZNPs. We also observed maximum antioxidant activity (99%) in callus cultures treated with G-ZNPs, however, in case of plantlets, these activities were found highest for in-vitro whole plant-mediated ZnO-NPs. Moreover, G-ZNPs also enhanced total protein content (265.32 BSAE/20g FW) in callus cultures. G-ZNPs were further assessed for their effects on several multidrug resistant bacterial strains and human liver carcinoma (HepG2) cells and our findings revealed that callus extracts treated with G-ZNPs show ameliorated antibacterial (highest zone of inhibition (19 mm) against Klebsiella pneumonia) and anticancer (highest cytotoxicity of 64%) activities.

Abstract This study was performed to screen out the various species of ‘Cucurbitaceae’ family, musk melon (Kalash and Durga), bottle gourd (Crystal Long and Nuefield) and squash (Green Round, and Squash Malika) against the salt stress. All genotypes were treated with five different levels of NaCl (T0 = control, T1 = 1.5 dS m-1, T2 = 3.0 dS m-1, T3 = 4.5 dS m-1 and T4 = 6.0 dS m-1) and half strength of Hoagland’s nutrients solution as the base nutrient solution. Results showed that the bottle gourd varieties “Nuefield” and “Crystal Long” performed best by maintaining the highest germination (93.2% and 85.6%), number of leaves per plant (4.5 and 5.7), shoot length (16.84 cm and 16.14 cm), root length (13.48 cm and 13.00 cm), plant fresh weight (942.2 g and 918.6 g), plant dry weight (118.4 g and 107.5 g), leaf area (171.2 cm2 and 169.1 cm2), chlorophyll content (3.5 μg/cm-2 and 3.4 μg/cm-2) with low chloride (1.57 ppm and 1.59 ppm) and sodium content (0.47 ppm and 0.51 ppm) under salt stress followed by varieties of Squash (Green Round, and Squash Malika) and musk melon (Kalash and Durga). It was also found that a higher level of salinity (4.5 dS m-1 and 6.0 dS m-1) has more adverse effects on the performance of all selected genotypes. Conclusively, it can be recommended that as compared to all tested species, bottle gourd varieties “Nuefield” and “Crystal Long” have the ability to withstand against salinity stress and should be planted under salt stress conditions.

Distinctive from conventional electronic structure methods, we solve the Schrödinger wave equations of the helium atom and its isoelectronic ions by employing one-dimensional basis functions to separate components. We use full two-electron six-dimensional operators and wavefunctions represented with real-space grids where the refinement of the latter is carried out using a residual minimization method. In contrast to the standard single-electron approach, the current approach results in exact treatment of repulsion energy and, hence, more accurate electron correlation within five centihartrees or better included, with moderate computational cost. A simple numerical convergence between the error to accurate results and the grid-spacing size is found. The obtained two-electron Schrödinger wavefunction that contains vast and elaborating information for the radial correlation function and common one-dimensional functions shows the electron correlation effect on one-electron distributions.

Methyl jasmonate (MeJA) plays a vital role in plant disease resistance and also induces the expression of disease resistance genes in plants. In this study, a transcriptome analysis was performed on grapevine leaves after 12, 24 and 48 h of MeJA-100 μM treatment. A total of 1242 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified from the transcriptome data, and the analysis of the DEGs showed that genes related to phytohormone signal transduction, jasmonic acid-mediated defense, Mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK), and flavonoid biosynthetic pathways were upregulated. As Pathogenesis-related gene 1 (PR1) is an important marker gene in plant defense also upregulated by MeJA treatment in RNA-seq data, the VvPR1 gene was selected for a promoter analysis with β-glucuronidase (GUS) through transient expression in tobacco leaves against abiotic stress. The results showed that the region from −1837 bp to −558 bp of the VvPR1 promoter is the key region in response to hormone and wound stress. In this study, we extended the available knowledge about induced defense by MeJA in a grapevine species that is susceptible to different diseases and identified the molecular mechanisms by which this defense might be mediated.

Objectives: To compare the frequency of excellent intubation condition with Succinylcholine and rocuronium for rapid sequence induction in patients undergoing surgery under general anesthesia. Design: Randomized control trial. Place and duration of study: Department of anesthesiology and pain medicine, Combined Military Hospital Malir Cantt Karachi from 25th June to 10th August 2019. Methodology: In this randomized control trial, a non-probability consecutive sampling technique was used. Anesthesia was given through a standard approach. Then patients were randomly divided into two equal groups. In group A, succinylcholine (1mg/Kg) was given while in group B, rocuronium (1mg/Kg) was given. Laryngoscopy was attempted after 60 seconds. Intubating conditions were labeled as excellent, good, poor, and impossible. All the data was collected in two groups, the data was entered and analyzed on SPSS version 21. Results: The mean age of the patients was 40.11±9.49 years. The male to female ratio of the patients was 0.7:1. The study results showed the excellent intubation conditions were noted in 11 from group A and 9 from group B, good intubation condition was noted in 29 from group A and 25 from group B, poor conditions were noted in 17 from group A and 16 from group B and the impossible intubation conditions were noted in 13 from group A and 20 from group B. Statistically insignificant difference was found between the study groups with intubation conditions i.e. p-value=0.570. Conclusion: It has been proved in our study that both the succinylcholine and rocuronium are statically equally effective in terms of excellent intubation conditions in the management of rapid sequence induction in patients undergoing surgery under general anesthesia.