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Globally, climate changes have significantly shifted the phenological phases and stages of rice, altered the duration of the growing season and negatively affected rice productivity due to flooding and drought. However, in the present study, the positive and negative impacts of inter‐annual climate variability on rice crops during phenological stages in agro‐climatic zones of Punjab for the period from 1989 to 2018. Initially, first difference approach was applied to minimise the impact of technological factors. Then, skewness and kurtosis tests were used to check the normalisation of the data. The standardisation method was used to normalise the data. Pearson correlation was used to determine the significant effects of climate variables on rice yield. The residuals were formed to confirm the effects of inter‐annual climate variability on rice yield in the phenological phases. The analysis revealed that a high variability of rice yields was investigated in the western region compared to the southern and western regions. The results showed a negative impact of heavy rainfall (flooding) on the years with low yields (2010, 2013 and 2016) in the Central region. Similarly, the years with low rice yields (1996, 2010, 2013 and 2014) in the Southern region were negatively affected by flooding at the time of sowing. A positive effect of rainfall was observed in the years with high rice yields (1995, 2002, 2009 and 2018) in the Western region. In contrast, the low‐yielding years 1994, 2003 and 2010 were negatively affected by flooding in the same years during the tillering stage. A high interannual maximum temperature variability was analysed in the Southern > Western > Central regions, leading to yield losses due to biotic stress during tillering and stem elongation stages. This is due to the immense reason of drought stress. The minimum temperature negatively affects the low‐yield years (2001, 2008, 2013 and 2016) in the central zone and the low‐yield years (2014, 2015 and 2016) in the southern zone during the reproductive stage. This research will help to develop new rice varieties that are more productive at high temperatures and require less water, leading to sustainable development in arid and semi‐arid regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High lead (Pb) levels in agricultural soil and wastewater threaten ecosystems and organism health. Microbial remediation is a cost-effective, efficient, and eco-friendly alternative to traditional physical or chemical methods for Pb remediation. Previous research indicates that micro-organisms employ various strategies to combat Pb pollution, including biosorption, bioprecipitation, biomineralization, and bioaccumulation. This study delves into recent advancements in Pb-remediation techniques utilizing bacteria, fungi, and microalgae, elucidating their detoxification pathways and the factors that influence Pb removal through specific case studies. It investigates how bacteria immobilize Pb by generating nanoparticles that convert dissolved lead (Pb-II) into less harmful forms to mitigate its adverse impacts. Furthermore, the current review explores the molecular-level mechanisms and genetic engineering techniques through which microbes develop resistance to Pb. We outline the challenges and potential avenues for research in microbial remediation of Pbpolluted habitats, exploring the interplay between Pb and micro-organisms and their potential in Pb removal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soil water conservation in dryland agriculture mainly depends on precipitation. We chose 35 long‐term experiments and analysed the data by using meta‐analysis to check how fallow management methods affect soil water storage of dryland winter wheat planting (SWS), precipitation storage efficiency (PSE), crop yield and water use efficiency (WUE). No‐tillage (NT), compared to conventional tillage (CT) in the fallow period, increased PSE, SWS, grain yield and WUE by 32.9%, 27.1%, 30.5% and 22.6%, respectively. Reduced tillage (RT) and subsoil tillage (ST) increased PSE by 15.2% and 11.7%, SWS by 17.4% and 15.0% and grain yield by 15.5 and 13.8%, respectively, but these had a non‐significant effect on WUE. The conservation tillage methods interacted significantly with the residue management and fallow mulching practices. Compared to CT, the conservation tillage methods with fallow mulching increased PSE, SWS, grain yield and WUE, but the growing of cover crops (designated as biological mulching) decreased PSE, SWS and grain yield by 17.3%, 13.0% and 32.0%, and had a non‐significant impact on WUE. Under the condition of straw mulching, NT increased PSE, SWS, grain yield and WUE by 43.7%, 38.1%, 40.6% and 42.9%, respectively, compared to CT. NT and RT increased the PSE, SWS and WUE, under normal mean annual precipitation (MAP), however, ST increased these observations under wet MAP, compared to CT. The effects of tillage methods varied with soil texture, and they were highly interrelated with water conservation, wheat yield and water use. We conclude that compared to conventional tillage, the conservation tillage methods increased soil water conservation during the fallow period, which increased wheat yield and water use. Moreover, NT with or without residue retention increased the fallow water conservation and wheat yield. Crop residues should be retained while applying RT and ST to grow winter wheat in dryland regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), a primary neoplasm derived from hepatocytes, is the second leading cause of cancer mortality worldwide. Previous work has shown that fibroblast growth factor 19 (FGF19), an oncogenic driver, acts as a negative regulator of the therapeutic efficacy of the tyrosine kinase inhibitor sorafenib in HCC cells. The FGF19-mediated mechanism affecting sorafenib treatment, however, still remains to be resolved. Here, we hypothesize that the FGF19-FGFR4 axis may affect the effectiveness of sorafenib in the treatment of HCC. Methods: FGF19 and FGFR4 cDNAs were cloned into a pcDNA3.1 vector and subsequently used for exogenous over-expression analyses. FGF19 knockdown cells were generated using a lentiviral-mediated short hairpin RNA (shRNA) methodology and FGFR4 knockout cells were generated using a CRISPR-Cas9 methodology. FGFR4 activation in HCC cells was inhibited by BLU9931. The effects of exogenous gene over-expression, expression knockdown and knockout, as well as drug efficacies in HCC cells, were validated using Western blotting. HCC cell proliferation was assessed using a CellTiter 96 AQueous One Solution Cell Proliferation Assay, whereas NO levels were assessed using DAF-FM DA staining in conjunction with electrochemical biosensors. Results: We found that FGF19, when exogenously overexpressed, results in a reduced sorafenib-induced NO generation and a decreased proliferation of HCC cells. In contrast, we found that either FGF19 silencing or knockout of its receptor FGFR4 sensitized HCC cells to sorafenib through the induction of NO generation. Concordantly, we found that inactivation of FGFR4 by BLU9931 enhanced the sensitivity of HCC cells to sorafenib. Conclusion: From our data we conclude that the FGF19-FGFR4 axis may play a critical role in the effects elicited by sorafenib in HCC cells. Blocking the FGF19-FGFR4 axis may provide novel opportunities to improve the efficacy of sorafenib in the treatment of patients with HCC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]