Cowpea (Vigna unguiculata L. Walp), a renewed multipurpose crop for a more sustainable agri‐food system: nutritional advantages and constraints

The growing awareness of the relevance of food composition for human health has increased the interest of the inclusion of high proportions of fruits and vegetables in diets. To reach the objective of more balanced diets, an increased consumption of legumes, which constitutes a sustainable source of essential nutrients, particularly low‐cost protein, is of special relevance. However, the consumption of legumes also entails some constraints that need to be addressed to avoid a deleterious impact on consumers' wellbeing and health. The value of legumes as a source of nutrients depends on a plethora of factors, including genetic characteristics, agro‐climatic conditions, and postharvest management that modulate the dietary effect of edible seeds and vegetative material. Thus, more comprehensive information regarding composition, especially their nutritional and anti‐nutritional compounds, digestibility, and alternative processing procedures is essential. These were the challenges to write this review, which focusses on the nutritional and anti‐nutritional composition of Vigna unguiculata L. Walp, an emerging crop all over the world intended to provide a rational support for the development of valuable foods and feeds of increased commercial value. © 2016 Society of Chemical Industry     

Managing grapevines to optimise fruit development in a challenging environment: a climate change primer for viticulturists

Grapevine reproductive development extends over two seasons, and the genotypic expression of yield potential and fruit composition is subject to environmental impacts, which include viticultural manipulations, throughout this period. This paper reviews current knowledge on yield formation and fruit composition and attempts to identify challenges, opportunities and priorities for research and practice. The present analysis of published information gives a critical appraisal of recent advances concerning variables, especially as they relate to global climate change, that influence yield formation and fruit composition at harvest. Exciting discoveries in fundamental research on the one hand and an increasing focus on outcomes and knowledge transfer on the other are enabling the development and implementation of practical recommendations that will impact grape production in the future. Future research should aim to minimise seasonal variation and optimise the profitable and sustainable production of high-quality fruit for specific uses in the face of climate change, water and labour shortages, shifting consumer preferences and global competition. Better control of product quantity and quality, and differentiation to meet consumer demands and market preferences will enhance the competitiveness and sustainability of the global grape and wine industries.     

Seed biopriming as a promising approach for stress tolerance and enhancement of crop productivity: a review

Chemicals are used extensively in agriculture to increase crop production to meet the nutritional needs of an expanding world population. However, their injudicious application adversely affects the soil's physical, chemical and biological properties, subsequently posing a substantial threat to human health and global food security. Beneficial microorganisms improve plant health and productivity with minimal impact on the environment; however, their efficacy greatly relies on the application technique. Biopriming is an advantageous technique that involves the treatment of seeds with beneficial biological agents. It exhibits immense potential in improving the physiological functioning of seeds, thereby playing a pivotal role in their uniform germination and vigor. Biopriming-mediated molecular and metabolic reprogramming imparts stress tolerance to plants, improves plant health, and enhances crop productivity. Furthermore, it is also associated with rehabilitating degraded land, and improving soil fertility, health and nutrient cycling. Although biopriming has vast applications in the agricultural system, its commercialization and utilization by farmers is still in its infancy. This review aims to critically analyze the recent studies based on biopriming-mediated stress mitigation by alteration in physiological, metabolic and molecular processes in plants. Additionally, considering the necessity of popularizing this technique, the major challenges and prospects linked to the commercialization and utilization of this technique in agricultural systems have also been discussed. © 2023 Society of Chemical Industry.     

Tiled ChrI RHS collection: a pilot high‐throughput screening tool for identification of allelic variants

Reciprocal hemizygosity analysis is a genetic technique that allows phenotypic determination of the allelic effects of a gene in a genetically uniform background. Expanding this single gene technique to generate a genome‐wide collection is termed as reciprocal hemizygosity scanning (RHS). The RHS collection should circumvent the need for linkage mapping and provide the power to identify all possible allelic variants for a given phenotype. However, the published RHS collections based on the existing genome‐wide haploid deletion library reported a high rate of false positives. In this study, we report de novo construction of a RHS collection that is not based on the yeast deletion library. This collection has been constructed for the shortest yeast chromosome, ChrI. Using this ChrI RHS collection, we identified 13 allelic variants for the previously mapped loci and novel allelic variants for the growth differences in different environments. A few of these novel variants, which were fine mapped to a gene level, identified novel genetic variation for the previously studied environmental conditions. The availability of a genome‐wide RHS collection would thus help us uncover a comprehensive list of allelic variants and better our understanding of the molecular pathways modulating a quantitative trait. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Primers‐4‐Yeast: a comprehensive web tool for planning primers for Saccharomyces cerevisiae

The budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae is a key model organism of functional genomics, due to its ease and speed of genetic manipulations. In fact, in this yeast, the requirement for homologous sequences for recombination purposes is so small that 40 base pairs (bp) are sufficient. Hence, an enormous variety of genetic manipulations can be performed by simply planning primers with the correct homology, using a defined set of transformation plasmids. Although designing primers for yeast transformations and for the verification of their correct insertion is a common task in all yeast laboratories, primer planning is usually done manually and a tool that would enable easy, automated primer planning for the yeast research community is still lacking. Here we introduce Primers‐4‐Yeast, a web tool that allows primers to be designed in batches for S. cerevisiae gene‐targeting transformations, and for the validation of correct insertions. This novel tool enables fast, automated, accurate primer planning for large sets of genes, introduces consistency in primer planning and is therefore suggested to serve as a standard in yeast research. Primers‐4‐Yeast is available at: http://www.weizmann.ac.il/Primers‐4‐Yeast Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Progesterone receptor up-regulation: a diagnostic tool for the illicit use of oestrogens in adult beef cattle

The monitoring of gene regulation via mRNA levels to detect anabolic sex steroid administration in cattle is a novel approach to detecting the illicit treatment of livestock in meat production. A previous study revealed that progesterone receptor (PR) gene expression levels were increased in the bulbourethral glands and prostates of 17β-oestradiol-treated prepubertal calves, suggesting that the PR can be used as a specific molecular biomarker for oestrogen treatment. The aim of this study was to verify the specificity and applicability of the PR to detect the illegal use of 17β-oestradiol in sexually mature beef cattle. Accessory sex glands were sampled from 42 male beef cattle that were divided into six experimental groups, including two control groups, K1 and K2. Group A cattle were treated with 17β-oestradiol (five weekly intramuscular doses of 20?mg), and group B cattle were treated with dexamethasone (40 daily doses of 0.7?mg per os). Group C cattle received an implant of Revalor-200 (200?mg of trenbolone acetate and 20?mg of 17β-oestradiol), and group D cattle received Revalor-200 plus dexamethasone (0.7?mg daily per os). 17β-Oestradiol, either alone or in combination with other steroids, up-regulated the PR gene and protein expression, even in the absence of detectable histological changes in the accessory sex glands, confirming the high sensitivity of PR gene expression as an indirect diagnostic screening tool to detect illicit oestrogen treatment in sexually mature male bovine.