Chilling and freezing temperatures adversely affect the productivity and quality of crops. Hence improving the cold hardiness of crop plants is an important goal in agriculture, which demands a clear understanding of cold stress signal perception and transduction. Pharmacological and biochemical evidence shows that membrane rigidification followed by cytoskeleton rearrangement, Ca(2+) influx an...

Due to their unique physical, chemical, and optical properties, gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) have recently attracted much interest in the field of nanomedicine, especially in the areas of cancer diagnosis and photothermal therapy. Because of the enormous potential of these nanoparticles, various physical, chemical, and biological methods have been adopted for their synthesis. Synthetic antioxidan...

Most insects have the ability to alter their cold tolerance in response to temporal temperature fluctuations, and recent studies have shown that insect cold tolerance is closely tied to the ability to maintain transmembrane ion gradients that are important for the maintenance of cell membrane potential (Vm). Several studies have therefore suggested a link between preservation of Vm and cellular...

The male sterility of thermosensitive genic male sterile (TGMS) lines of wheat (Triticum aestivum) is strictly controlled by temperature. The early phase of anther development is especially susceptible to cold stress. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) play an important role in plant development and in responses to environmental stress. In this study, deep sequencing of small RNA (smRNA) libraries obtained fro...

The male sterility of thermosensitive genic male sterile (TGMS) lines of wheat (Triticum aestivum) is strictly controlled by temperature. The early phase of anther development is especially susceptible to cold stress. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) play an important role in plant development and in responses to environmental stress. In this study, deep sequencing of small RNA (smRNA) libraries obtained fro...

How borderline impairment of thyroid function can affect thermoregulation is an important issue because of the antithyroidal properties of a many environmental toxicants. This study compared the efficacy of heat and cold stress to identify thermoregulatory deficits in rats subjected to borderline and overt hypothyroidism via subchronic exposure to propylthiouracil (PTU). After 3 wk of exposure ...

Low temperature is a major abiotic stress that impedes plant growth and development. Brassica juncea is an economically important oil seed crop and is sensitive to freezing stress during pod filling subsequently leading to abortion of seeds. To understand the cold stress mediated global perturbations in gene expression, whole transcriptome of B. juncea siliques that were exposed to sub-optimal ...

Cold stress due to whole body cooling at low environmental temperatures exacerbates lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) such as urinary urgency, nocturia, and residual urine. We established a model system using healthy conscious rats to explore the mechanisms of cold stress-induced detrusor overactivity. In this review, we summarize the basic findings revealed by this model. Rats that are quick...

Chlorophyll-a fluorescence analysis provides relevant information about the physiology of plants growing under abiotic stress. In this study, we evaluated the influence of cold stress on the photosynthetic machinery of transgenic turfgrass, Zoysia japonica, expressing oat phytochrome A (PhyA) or a hyperactive mutant phytochrome A (S599A) with post-translational phosphorylation blocked. Biochemi...

The relationship between Mg-protoporphyrin IX (Mg-Proto IX) signals and plant's tolerance to cold stress is investigated. Arabidopsis seedlings grown for 3 weeks were pretreated with 2 mM glutamate (Glu) and 2 mM MgCl2 for 48 h at room temperature to induce Mg-Proto IX accumulation. Then cold stress was performed at 4°C for additional 72 h. Glu + MgCl2 pre-treatments alleviated the subsequent c...