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Abiotic and biotic stresses severely affect plant growth and yield. However, plants can adapt to biotic stresses by reprogramming gene expression at the transcriptional and post-transcriptional levels. Recently, the exogenous application of RNA interference (RNAi) technology is making good progress and offering a possible alternative to genetic transformation for combating biotic stresses in plants. In this process, the RNAi regulates the transcript level by transcriptional gene silencing (suppression transcription) or post-transcriptional gene silencing (activating sequence-specific RNA degradation). The use of RNAi tools and their respective targets against various biotic stresses has been reported in many agronomic crops. Spray-induced gene silencing is a recent advancement that uses dsRNA as a trigger to silence target genes in pathogens, however, the carrier is needed to stabilise the RNA for a longer period and to reach the target pathogen. In this review, we focus on the synthesis of RNAi constructs and their potential applications against biotic stressors in different crop species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethylene responsive transcription factors is a superfamily of transcription factors, regulates various developmental, defense and stress responses, and their use in plant improvement require to have better understanding of these proteins. In the present study, 68 ERF genes have been selected from Pea EST raw data from various publically available databases. Phylogenetic analysis with pea ERF domain shows its close relatedness to ERF60 and ERF92. Transcriptomic analysis revealed that ERF60 and ERF92 are more specific to temperature stress tolerance. Broad phenotypic variability among the temperature stress treated and control of pea varieties, i.e. P-89, Arkel, and Azad Pea-1 were detected by using morphological descriptors. A set of seven gene-specific primers were developed based on ERF unigenes which gave 100% polymorphism. The results from present study reveal that the genes of ERF family play various roles in plants life and generated comprehensive data will be useful in conducting functional genomics. Physiological and molecular analyses of stress treated pea varieties showed that low temperature Arkel variety performed best under low temperature stress condition and could be used for crop breeding programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Petrochemicals are important hydrocarbons, which are one of the major concerns when accidently escaped into the environment. On one hand, these cause soil and fresh water pollution on land due to their seepage and leakage from automobile and petrochemical industries. On the other hand, oil spills occur during the transport of crude oil or refined petroleum products in the oceans around the world. These hydrocarbon and petrochemical spills have not only posed a hazard to the environment and marine life, but also linked to numerous ailments like cancers and neural disorders. Therefore, it is very important to remove or degrade these pollutants before their hazardous effects deteriorate the environment. There are varieties of mechanical and chemical methods for removing hydrocarbons from polluted areas, but they are all ineffective and expensive. Bioremediation techniques provide an economical and eco-friendly mechanism for removing petrochemical and hydrocarbon residues from the affected sites. Bioremediation refers to the complete mineralization or transformation of complex organic pollutants into the simplest compounds by biological agents such as bacteria, fungi, etc. Many indigenous microbes present in nature are capable of detoxification of various hydrocarbons and their contaminants. This review presents an updated overview of recent advancements in various technologies used in the degradation and bioremediation of petroleum hydrocarbons, providing useful insights to manage such problems in an eco-friendly manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Proteases are ubiquitous enzymes, having significant physiological roles in both synthesis and degradation. The use of microbial proteases in food fermentation is an age-old process, which is today being successfully employed in other industries with the advent of 'omics' era and innovations in genetic and protein engineering approaches. Proteases have found application in industries besides food, like leather, textiles, detergent, waste management, agriculture, animal husbandry, cosmetics, and pharmaceutics. With the rising demands and applications, researchers are exploring various approaches to discover, redesign, or artificially synthesize enzymes with better applicability in the industrial processes. These enzymes offer a sustainable and environmentally safer option, besides possessing economic and commercial value. Various bacterial and fungal proteases are already holding a commercially pivotal role in the industry. The current review summarizes the characteristics and types of proteases, microbial source, their current and prospective applications in various industries, and future challenges. Promoting these biocatalysts will prove significant in betterment of the modern world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]