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Abstract Heat stress poses a significant environmental challenge that profoundly impacts wheat productivity. It disrupts vital physiological processes such as photosynthesis, by impeding the functionality of the photosynthetic apparatus and compromising plasma membrane stability, thereby detrimentally affecting grain development in wheat. The scarcity of identified marker trait associations pertinent to thermotolerance presents a formidable obstacle in the development of marker-assisted selection strategies against heat stress. To address this, wheat accessions were systematically exposed to both normal and heat stress conditions and phenotypic data were collected on physiological traits including proline content, canopy temperature depression, cell membrane injury, photosynthetic rate, transpiration rate (at vegetative and reproductive stage and ‘stay-green’. Principal component analysis elucidated the most significant contributors being proline content, transpiration rate, and canopy temperature depression, which exhibited a synergistic relationship with grain yield. Remarkably, cluster analysis delineated the wheat accessions into four discrete groups based on physiological attributes. Moreover, to explore the relationship between physiological traits and DNA markers, 158 wheat accessions were genotyped with 186 SSRs. Allelic frequency and polymorphic information content value were found to be highest on genome A (4.94 and 0.688), chromosome 1A (5.00 and 0.712), and marker Xgwm44 (13.0 and 0.916). Population structure, principal coordinate analysis and cluster analysis also partitioned the wheat accessions into four subpopulations based on genotypic data, highlighting their genetic homogeneity. Population diversity and presence of linkage disequilibrium established the suitability of population for association mapping. Additionally, linkage disequilibrium decay was most pronounced within a 15–20 cM region on chromosome 1A. Association mapping revealed highly significant marker trait associations at Bonferroni correction P

Abstract Progressive familial intrahepatic cholestasis (PFIC) is a rare childhood manifested disease associated with impaired bile secretion with severe pruritus yellow stool, and sometimes hepatosplenomegaly. PFIC is caused by mutations in ATP8B1, ABCB11, ABCB4, TJP2, NR1H4, SLC51A, USP53, KIF12, ZFYVE19, and MYO5B genes depending on its type. ABCB11 mutations lead to PFIC2 that encodes the bile salt export pump (BSEP). Different mutations of ABCB11 have been reported in different population groups but no data available in Pakistani population being a consanguineous one. We sequenced coding exons of the ABCB11 gene along with its flanking regions in 66 unrelated Pakistani children along with parents with PFIC2 phenotype. We identified 20 variations of ABCB11: 12 in homozygous form, one compound heterozygous, and seven heterozygous. These variants include 11 missenses, two frameshifts, two nonsense mutations, and five splicing variants. Seven variants are novel candidate variants and are not detected in any of the 120 chromosomes from normal ethnically matched individuals. Insilico analysis revealed that four homozygous missense variations have high pathogenic scores. Minigene analysis of splicing variants showed exon skipping and the addition of exon. This data is a useful addition to the disease variants genomic database and would be used in the future to build a diagnostic algorithm.

Abstract Water scarcity and droughts are among the most challenging issues worldwide, particularly in arid and semi-arid regions like Saudi Arabia. Date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.), a major crop in Saudi Arabia, is being significantly affected by water scarcity, soil salinity, and desertification. Alternative water sources are needed to conserve freshwater resources and increase date palm production in Saudi Arabia. On the other hand, Saudi Arabia has a significant number of aquaculture farms that generate substantial amounts of wastewater, which can be utilized as an alternative source of irrigation. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the potential of aquaculture wastewater as an alternative irrigation source for date palm orchards. Aquaculture wastewater was collected from 12 different farms (Al-Kharj, Al-Muzahmiya, and Al-Qassim regions, Saudi Arabia) and its quality was analyzed. The impacts of aquaculture wastewater irrigation on soil quality, nutrient availability, nutrient status of date palm trees, and dates fruit quality were assessed in comparison to source water (freshwater) irrigation at Al-Kharj, Al-Muzahmiya, and Al-Qassim regions. The water quality analyses showed higher salinity (EC = 3.31 dSm−1) in farm Q3, while all other farms demonstrated no salinity, sodicity, or alkalinity hazards. Moreover, the aquaculture wastewater irrigation increased soil available P, K, NO3 −–N, and NH4 +–N by 49.31%, 21.11%, 33.62%, and 52.31%, respectively, compared to source water irrigation. On average, date palm fruit weight, length, and moisture contents increased by 26%, 23%, and 43% under aquaculture wastewater irrigation compared to source water irrigation. Further, P, K, Fe, Cu, and Zn contents in date palm leaf were increased by 19.35%, 34.17%, 37.36%, 38.24%, and 45.29%, respectively, under aquaculture wastewater irrigation compared to source water irrigation. Overall, aquaculture wastewater irrigation significantly enhanced date palm plant growth, date palm fruit quality, and soil available nutrients compared to freshwater irrigation. It was concluded that aquaculture wastewater can be used as an effective irrigation source for date palm farms as it enhances soil nutrient availability, date palm growth, and date fruit yield and quality. The findings of this study suggest that aquaculture wastewater could be a viable alternative for conserving freshwater resources and increase date palm production in Saudi Arabia.

Abstract In this study, biochar (BC) and hydrochar (HC) composites were synthesized with natural kaolinite clay and their properties, stability, carbon (C) sequestration potential, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) toxicity, and impacts on maize germination and growth were explored. Conocarpus waste was pretreated with 0%, 10%, and 20% kaolinite and pyrolyzed to produce BCs (BC, BCK10, and BCK20, respectively), while hydrothermalized to produce HCs (HC, HCK10, and HCK20, respectively). The synthesized materials were characterized using X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscope analyses, Fourier transform infrared, thermogravimetric analysis, surface area, proximate analyses, and chemical analysis to investigate the distinction in physiochemical and structural characteristics. The BCs showed higher C contents (85.73–92.50%) as compared to HCs (58.81–61.11%). The BCs demonstrated a higher thermal stability, aromaticity, and C sequestration potential than HCs. Kaolinite enriched-BCs showed the highest cation exchange capacity than pristine BC (34.97% higher in BCK10 and 38.04% higher in BCK20 than pristine BC), while surface area was the highest in kaolinite composited HCs (202.8% higher in HCK10 and 190.2% higher in HCK20 than pristine HC). The recalcitrance index (R50) speculated a higher recalcitrance for BC, BCK10, and BCK20 (R50 > 0.7), minimal degradability for HCK10 and HCK20 (0.5

Abstract The thermal agitation plays a vital role in tunability of optoelectronic, structural and chemical characteristics of the temperature sensitive materials. Graphene enables the THz optics, due to its unprecedent controlling characteristics over the traditional materials. The influence of temperature on the monolayer graphene is very negligible due to its low free charge carrier density, to enhance the thermal sensitivity of graphene, the graphene loaded temperature sensitive material interface has been proposed. A theoretical analysis has been carried out on temperature dependent propagation characteristics of electromagnetic surface waves supported by the graphene loaded semi-infinite indium antimonide (InSb). The InSb has been taken as temperature sensitive material. The Drude model has been used for the modeling of InSb in the THz region while the modeling of the graphene has been done by random phase approximation-based Kubo’s formulism. To realize the graphene loaded indium antimonide interface, the impedance boundary conditions (IBCs) have been employed. The numerical analysis has been conducted to analyze the influence of temperature on the characteristics of electromagnetic surface waves i.e., dispersion curve, effective mode index (Neff), penetration depth (δ), propagation length (Lp), phase speed (Vp) and field profile, propagating along the graphene loaded InSb. In all the numerical results, the temperature variation has been considered from 200 to 350 K. It has been concluded that the graphene–InSb interface provides more temperature assisted tunability to the interfacial surface modes, commonly known as surface waves, as compared to monolayer graphene. Further, the graphene parameters can play a vital role in the dynamical tuning of electromagnetic surface waves in THz to IR frequency range. The numerically computed results have potential applications in designing of thermo-optical waveguides, temperature assisted communication devices, thermo-optical sensors and near field thermal imaging platforms.

Abstract Sources and levels of heavy metals (HMs) in soil and dust of urban and suburban areas in Riyadh (industrial city) and Mahad AD’Dahab (mining area) cities in Saudi Arabia were reported in this study. Additionally, the concentrations of HMs in different soil particle size fractions (> 250, 63–250 and 2). The hazard index values of dust and soil ( 1, suggesting non-carcinogenic risk. Therefore, the dust and soil samples from the mined area of Mahad AD’Dahab had a higher pollution levels, as well as ecological and human health risks than those from Riyadh. Hence, the pollution of such residential environments with HMs (especially Cd, Cu, Zn, and Pb) needs to be monitored.