Oilseed Brassicas stand first in the edible oil production of India¹ however, are under constant threats from environmental challenges like the white mold disease caused by the necrotrophic phytopathogen Sclerotinia sclerotiorum². Indeed, in case of oilseed mustard Brassica juncea, a dominant oilseed crop of the Indian subcontinent, white mold has become a major limiting factor both during pre and the post-harvest stages with >92% yield losses reported³. Brassica species produce a group of unique defense metabolites called glucosinolates, which along with their hydrolysis products are reported for toxicity against Sclerotinia both under in-vitro and in-vivo conditions^4,5. Nevertheless, pathogens like Sclerotinia, are able to infect, colonize and cause significant yield losses on glucosinolate producing plants. In this context, we initially assessed the disease dynamics of S. sclerotiorum-B. juncea pathosystem at different time points and analyzed changes in the in-planta levels of different glucosinolates (C3, C4 and C5 fractions) during Sclerotinia infection. Our results suggest that, Sclerotinia infection activates the glucosinolate-myrosinase system by modulating changes in total and component glucosinolates of B. juncea plants throughout the time course of infection. We also assessed the toxicity of allyl-ITC (degradation product of sinigrin, an abundant glucosinolate in B. juncea cultivars) on the growth of Sclerotinia in-vitro and observed that this C3-aliphatic glucosinolate derived product, has proven to be one of the most toxic to Sclerotinia. In addition, we performed HPLC analysis to determine the glucosinolate content and types across 250 diverse germplasm accessions of B. juncea that span a range of variation in the glucosinolate metabolite trait, which shall be useful for identification of resistance to Sclerotinia in the mustard crop. Overall, this research work will be useful to understand the disease mechanism and enable selective manipulation of defense metabolites to prevent white mold disease losses in polyploid crop species.

REFERENCES:

1. Jat, R.S., Singh, V.V., Sharma, P. and Rai, P.K., 2019. Oilseed Brassica in India: Demand, supply, policy perspective and future potential. Oilseeds & Fats Crops and Lipids, 26, pp.8.
2. Del Rio, L.E., Bradley, C.A., Henson, R.A., Endres, G.J., Hanson, B.K., McKay, K., Halvorson, M., Porter, P.M., Le Gare, D.G. and Lamey, H.A., 2007. Impact of Sclerotinia stem rot on yield of canola. Plant Disease, 91(2), pp.191-194.
3. Shukla, A.K., 2005. Estimation of yield losses to Indian mustard (Brassica juncea) due to Sclerotinia stem rot. Journal of Phytological Research, 18(2), pp.267-268.
4. Sotelo, T., Lema, M., Soengas, P., Cartea, M.E. and Velasco, P., 2015. In vitro activity of glucosinolates and their degradation products against Brassica-pathogenic bacteria and fungi. Applied and Environmental Microbiology, 81(1), pp.432-440.
5. Stotz, H.U., Sawada, Y., Shimada, Y., Hirai, M.Y., Sasaki, E., Krischke, M., Brown, P.D., Saito, K. and Kamiya, Y., 2011. Role of camalexin, indole glucosinolates, and side chain modification of glucosinolate‐derived isothiocyanates in defense of Arabidopsis against Sclerotinia sclerotiorum. The Plant Journal, 67(1), pp.81-93.

Crithmum maritimum known with several popular names as finocchio marino, critmo, cretamo, spaccasassi, bacicci, basiggia, erba di San Pietro and salissia, is a perennial halophyte, thrives on coastal cliffs and sometimes in sandy beaches along the Mediterranean, Pacific and Atlantic coasts.
This plant, native to southern Europe, survives also under salinity conditions, so it is considered a promising biosaline crop. However, its commercial cultivation potential is not yet fully exploited and there are few studies regarding the agricultural management and best practices to grow this crop in the Mediterranean environment [1].
Sea fennel is an emerging vegetable crop also thanks to its increasing food uses [2]. This is due to its aromatic traits, for instance to make pickles and to flavour and season soups, sauces and salads. The connections between cultivation and nutritional value were investigated. Since the natural environment of the sea fennel has a high concentration of iodine, a biofortification experiment was performed to evaluate the effect on nutritional values [3].
For the reasons mentioned above, interest in this plant is growing and different studies have been performed to understand the total chemical profile of the vegetable.
This work aims to provide a complete quantitative and qualitative overview of the extract obtained from the aerial parts of C. maritimum, provided by a Mediterrean firm. For this purpose aerial parts were dried, ground and extracted by percolation with ethanol 70% at 60°C. The purification was done using an Amberlite® XAD7HP sorbent resin. For the quantification was used an UHPLC-DAD-MS/MS system, equipped with electrospray ionization (ESI) and a Zorbax ODS (250 x 4.6 mm, 5 μm) column.
From the results emerges that the purified extract is richer than the unpurified one, furthermore the extract was mainly composed of phenolic compounds, among which hydroxycinnamic acids and flavonoids were the two main chemical classes. Among the former, chlorogenic acids, including 5-O-caffeoylquinic acid (10.5-22.36 mg g^-1), 3,5-di-O-caffeoylquinic acid (5.99-15.82 mg g^-1) and 4,5-di-O-caffeoylquinic acid (5.09-15.35 mg g^-1), were the most abundant ones. Among flavonoids, rutin (1.60-4.33 mg g^-1) and kaempferol-3-O-rhamnoside (0.07-0.33 mg g^-1) were the main constituents.
These results support the use of this plant as a functional food or in nutraceuticals, thanks to the abundance of antioxidant compounds. This also suggests the study of the relation between cultivation systems and nutraceutical values.

[1] Zenobi S, Fiorentini M, Zitti S, Aquilanti L, Foligni R, Mannozzi C, Mozzon M and Orsini R. Crithmum maritimum L.: First Results on Phenological Development and Biomass Production in Mediterranean Areas. Agronomy. 2021 April.
[2] Pereira AG, Fraga-Corral M, García-Oliveira P, Jimenez-Lopez C, Lourenço-Lopes C, Carpena M, Otero P, Gullón P, Prieto MA, Simal-Gandara J. Culinary and nutritional value of edible wild plants from the northern Spain rich in phenolic compounds with potential health benefits. Food & Function. 2020 Oct 21; 11(10):8493-8515.
[3] Sarrou E, S.Siomos A,Riccadona S, Aktsoglou D, Tsouvaltzis P, Angeli A, Franceschi P, Chatzopoulou P, Vrhovsek U, Martens S. Improvement of sea fennel (Crithmum maritimum L.) nutritional value through iodine biofortification in a hydroponic floating system. Food Chemistry, 296, 150-159. October 2019.

Diabetes Mellitus Type-2 (DM-2) has become a challenging disease worldwide as many young adults are also getting affected by it due sedentary lifestyle and wrong diets. Multiple studies have shown that control over α-amylase enzyme in gut could be a better approach to treat DM-2. The secondary metabolites produced by the plants have various biological properties and many are used as drugs. In the current study, we isolated secondary metabolites from acetone leaf extracts of Artemisia pallens Wall ex DC (Family: Asteraceae) and tested them for their porcine pancreatic α-amylase (PPA) inhibitory activity in vitro and in silico. This extract exhibited good PPA inhibition, with IC₅₀ value of 388.05 µg/ml. The IC₅₀ value of Acarbose (a known pancreatic α-amylase inhibitor drug / positive control) was 9.71 µg/ml. Various secondary metabolites detected from acetone leaf extract by LC-MS analysis, were used for the molecular docking studies using AutoDock 4.2.6. The co-crystallised structure of PPA and Acarbose was retrieved from Protein Data Bank (PDB ID: 1OSE). The binding energies of few metabolites were (kcal/mol): Isoquercetin (-11.57), Cryptochlorogenic Acid (-11.17), Cirsilineol (-10.24), Kaempferide (-9.99), Fustin (-9.86), 6- Demetroxycapillarisin (-9.82), Piperine (-9.45), Ergometrine (-9.43), Apigenin (-9.38) & Artemisinin (-9.27). Acarbose had a binding energy of -17.58 kcal/mol. All the metabolites looked highly promising as α-amylase inhibitors and most of them interacted with PPA via hydrogen bonding with crucial amino acid residues: ASP197, ASP300 & GLU233. Thus the acetone extract of A. pallens leaves can potentially inhibit PPA (strong amino acid sequence similarity with human pancreatic α-amylase) and hence extrapolation of these inhibitory results could be valid for human pancreatic α-amylase as well.

Frost damage remains an important driver of floral ecological dynamics in certain areas of the Australian landscape. However, responses of native Australian species to frost damage remain largely understudied. Here, attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy, conducted on intact leaves, was used to monitor changes in the protein secondary structures of Pittosporum spinescens upon exposure to below-zero temperatures. The dominant secondary structures present in fresh leaves were the inter-molecular aggregates (40 %), α-helices (20 %), β-sheets (15 %) and random coil structures (14 %). During simulated severe frost (-18 °C), a reduction in α-helices and increase in the amount of inter-molecular structures were observed, followed by transmutation of the latter into anti-parallel β-sheets or another form of inter-molecular structures. After 6 hours, the dominant protein secondary structures were anti-parallel β-sheets and inter-molecular aggregates (ca. 64 % and 17 %, respectively), with only small amounts of α-helices (4 %), β-sheets (9 %) and random coil structures (5 %) present. Overall, this indicates a reduction in the organisation level of protein secondary structures, resulting in a probable loss of function and considerable damage to the functional activity of any proteins in the leaves. The technique of ATR-FTIR spectroscopy should be considered by future researchers interested in investigating responses to frost damage in other species, particularly at an ecological level. Portable FTIR instrumentation would greatly expand the potential range of applications.

Cowpea (Vigna unguiculata) is a heat and drought resistant legume which thrives in poor and marginal soils, also due to its symbiosis with nitrogen fixing bacteria. Its high protein content suggests this crop fits perfectly with the three dimensions of sustainable development; social, economic and environmental issues. Extensive use of commercial varieties causes genetic variability loss, compromising breeding efforts in a context of climate changes. To contribute to the evaluation of Portuguese cowpea germplasm, several landraces were compared with a commercial variety (CV) in terms of productivity and physiological responses to drought. Potted plants were grown in a semi-controlled environment and well irrigated during the vegetative growth. Water stress was induced during the reproductive phase in half of the plants. Physiological measurements were conducted during stress. At the end of the cycle pods and seeds were counted and weighted. Despite a clear effect of stress in photosynthesis, there were no differences between the CV and landraces. However, under drought higher relative chlorophyll content (SPAD), was kept for a longer time in CV. Both the CV and landraces showed a marked decrease in productivity (60 - 70%) under stress. The induced drought had no impact on grains weight. As expected, the CV produced bigger and heavier seeds, eventually more appealing to consumers. Results suggest that CV and the studied landraces present a similar behaviour, reflecting the species adaptation to Mediterranean climate. Molecular characterization of genetic diversity is on course using microsatellites.