Processing of microRNA (miRNA) precursors results in the release of a double-stranded miRNA/miRNA* duplex. The miRNA or guide strand, is loaded onto the Argonaute (AGO) effector, and the miRNA* or passenger strand is typically degraded. The loaded AGO-containing RNA-induced silencing complex specifically recognizes a target mRNA, leading to its degradation or translational inhibition. In plants...

Higher plants are an important source of secondary metabolites such as flavours, fragrances, dyes, pigments, food additives, terpenoids, alkaloids, and glycosides with medicinal importance. Several of these secondary plant products also form the basis for drug development. Today, several countries use plant derived chemicals as drugs with modifications. Unfortunately, these secondary plant prod...

Coleus spp. have long been prized for their colorful foliage, which may combine shades of green, yellow, pink, red and maroon. They are plants for all locations. Besides their ornamental nature, Coleus spp. are also valued in folk medicine. C. blumei Benth., a natural hybrid of several Coleus spp. is an ornamental plant growing all over the world in an enormous number of different cultivars tha...

Bacteria belonging to the Vibrionaceae family are widespread in the marine environment. Today, 128 species of vibrios are known. Several of them are infamous for their pathogenicity or symbiotic relationships. Despite their ability to interact with eukaryotes, the vibrios are greatly underexplored for their ability to produce bioactive secondary metabolites and studies have been limited to only...

Approximately 90% of fine aerosol in the Midwestern United States has a regional component with a sizable fraction attributed to secondary production of organic aerosol (SOA). The Ozark Forest is an important source of biogenic SOA precursors like isoprene (> 150 mg m-2 d-1), monoterpenes (10-40 mg m-2 d-1), and sesquiterpenes (1040 mg m-2d-1). Anthropogenic sources include secondary sulfate an...

sufficient to meet bacterial needs (let alone the needs of other consumers) to one in which bacterial needs are very much less than available carbon, thereby solving the budgetary problems discussed in the closing paragraphs of Scavia and Laird’s paper. Similarly, an explicit consideration of the recycling of organic carbon by consumers may help to explain apparently excessive demands of consum...

The growth and reproduction of animals is affected by their access to resources. In aquatic ecosystems, the availability of essential biomolecules for filter-feeding zooplankton depends greatly on phytoplankton. Here, we analyzed the biochemical composition, i.e., the fatty acid, sterol and amino acid profiles and concentrations as well as protein, carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus content of 17...

In this study, a correlation is described between low cytoplasmic pH, measured with the fluorescent probes 2[prime],7[prime]-bis-(2-carboxyethyl)-5-(and-6)-carboxyfluorescein (acetoxymethyl ester) and bis- [3-propyl-5-oxoisoxazol-4-yl]pentamethine oxonol, and the production of secondary metabolites for several plant cell-suspension systems. Anthraquinone production in Morinda citrifolia suspens...

The structure of developed economies has changed radically in recent decades. As late as the 1960s, it was reasonable to describe the economy in terms of three stages of production: primary production—of agricultural and mineral raw materials; secondary production—a manufacturing industry that transformed raw materials into items of final consumption; tertiary production—a sector that provided ...