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Caffeine is a characteristic bioactive compound in tea and coffee plants, which is synthesized and accumulated extensively in leaves and seeds. However, little is known about the regulatory mechanism of caffeine synthesis in plants. This study compared the caffeine metabolite between tea and coffee plants. We found that tea leaves contained significantly higher caffeine than coffee leaves, which is perhaps due to more members of N-methyltransferase(NMT) genes as well as higher expression levels in tea plants. Substantial numbers of transcription factors were predicted to be involved in caffeine biosynthesis regulation, combining weighted gene co-expression network analysis and the cis-element of NMTpromoter analysis in tea and coffee plants. Furthermore, analysis of the transcription factors from the caffeine-related modules suggested that the regulatory mechanism of caffeine biosynthesis was probably partly conservative in tea and coffee plants. This study provides an essential resource for the regulatory mechanism of caffeine biosynthesis in plants.

The core objective of instant study was to check the effectiveness of Aloe veraedible coating on postharvest life and physicochemical characteristics of eggplants under different storage temperatures. For this purpose, different formulations of Aloe verabased coating (non-poisonous) was applied at concentration of 0, 0.1%, 0.5%, and 1.0%, respectively on eggplants. The coated eggplants were stored at two different temperatures [10°C and (30±2)°C] and examined for weight loss, firmness, stem color, shriveling, total soluble solids, pH, acidity, vitamin C, sugar (total sugar, reducing sugar and non-reducing sugar) and N, P, K, Ca and Na for two weeks. The obtained results showed that weight loss, shriveling, total soluble solids, pH, sugar (total sugar and non-reducing sugar) increased and firmness, stem color, acidity, reducing sugar, vitamin C minimized during the storage period. The 0.5% Aloecoating at 10°C showed significant effect and delayed the changes in above parameters. Aloe veracoating remained almost ineffective in altering nutrient homeostasis (N, P, K, Ca and Na) of eggplants. The optimistic results gained in the current study could additionally investigate in larger market experiments and also could extensive to other tropical/subtropical fruits and vegetables.

The enzyme myo-inositol-1-phosphate synthase (MIPS EC 5.5.1.4) catalyzes the first step of myo-inositol biosynthesis, a product that plays crucial roles in plants as an osmoprotectant, transduction molecule, cell wall constituent and production of stress related molecule. Previous reports highlighted an important role of MIPS family genes in abiotic stresses particularly under salt stress tolerance in several plant species; however, little is known about the cellular and physiological functions of MIPS2 genes under abiotic conditions. In this study, a novel salt stress responsive gene designated GsMIPS2 from wild soybean Glycine soja07256 was functionally characterized contained an open reading frame (ORF) of 1 533 bp coding a peptide sequence of 510 amino acids along with mass of 56 445 ku. Multiple sequence alignment analysis revealed its 92%-99% similarity with other MIPS family members in legume proteins. Quantitative real-time PCR results demonstrated that GsMIPS2 was induced by salt stress and expressed in roots of soybean. The positive function of GsMIPS2 under salt response at different growth stages of transgenic Arabidopsiswas also elucidated. The results showed that GsMIPS2 transgenic lines displayed increased tolerance as compared to WT and atmips2 mutant lines under salt stress. Furthermore, the expression levels of some salt stress responsive marker genes, including KIN1, RD29A, RD29B, P5Csand COR47 were significantly up-regulated in GsMIPS2 overexpression lines than wild type and atmips2 mutant. Collectively, these results suggested that GsMIPS2 gene was a positive regulator of plant tolerance to salt stress. This was the first report to demonstrate that overexpression of GsMIPS2 gene from wild soybean improved salt tolerance in transgenic Arabidopsis.

The survival of pediatric patients with cancer entities including osteosarcoma and Ewing’s sarcoma (ES), remains extremely low hence novel treatment approaches are urgently needed. Therefore, based on the concept of targeted therapy, numerous potential targets for the treatment of these cancers have been evaluated pre-clinically or in some cases even clinically during the last decade. In ES the CD99 protein is an attractive target antigen. In this respect, a new entry site for therapeutic intervention may derive from specific human antibodies against CD99. Human scFvC7 was isolated from a semi-synthetic ETH-2 antibody phage library panned on the extracellular portion of recombinant human CD99 protein. The scFvC7 was genetically sequenced, tested for CD99 recognition on an array of recombinant CD99 fragments and measured for binding affinity by ELISA. Finally, it was tested for staining CD99 antigen on a large panel of tumor and normal cells and tissues by cytofluorimetric and immunohystochemical assays. The new antibody scFvC7 recognizes the CD99 extracellular domain included between residues 50 and 74 with a binding affinity of 2.4 x 10-8 M. In contrast with all other antibodies to CD99 so far isolated, scFvC7 shows a unique specificity in cancer cell recognition: It stained prevalently ES cells while no or weak reactivity was observed on the majority of the other tumor and normal cells and tissues. Thanks to its properties the new anti-CD99 antibody here described represents the first step towards the construction of new selective ES therapeutics.

Between 1988 and 1993, 81 children with 82 femur fractures were treated with external fixators at the Santobono Children's Hospital of Naples. This technique was reserved for children older than 6 years with open fractures, multiple fractures, multiple trauma, and unstable fractures. The patients were placed in skin traction on admission, and after 24-48 h, the external fixator was applied under general anesthesia. Therefore, within 1 week the children were able to take care of themselves and to attend school. The fixator was very well tolerated and was removed 8-9 weeks later. The fractures healed with good alignment, no complications with few cases of superficial infections, and less overgrowth. The use of external fixation is recommended for its simplicity and lack of complications.

Microbiomes can greatly affect the quality of fermented food and beverages, including tea. In this study, microbial populations were characterized during black and green tea manufacturing, revealing that tea processing steps can drive both the bacterial and fungal community structure. Tea leaves were found to mostly harbor Proteobacteria, Bacteriodetes, Firmicutes, and Actinobacteria among bacteria and Ascomycetes among fungi. During processing, tea microbial populations changed especially between sterilized and unsterilized samples. The surface sterilization of fresh leaves before processing can remove many microbes, especially the bacteria of the genera Sphingomonasand Methylobacteria, indicating that these are mostly phylloplane microbes on tea leaves. The surface sterilization removed most fungi, except the Debaryomyces. We also observed a fluctuation in the content of several tea quality-related metabolites during processing. Caffeine and theanine were found in the same quantities in green tea with or without leaf surface sterilization. However, the sterilization process dramatically decreased the content of total catechins and theanine in black tea, indicating that microbes on the surface of tea leaf may be involved in maintaining the formation of these important metabolites during black tea processing.