Bacteria in the genus Rickettsia, best known as vertebrate pathogens vectored by blood-feeding arthropods, can also be found in phytophagous insects. The presence of closely related bacterial symbionts in evolutionarily distant arthropod hosts presupposes a means of horizontal transmission, but no mechanism for this transmission has been described. Using a combination of experiments with live i...

Kidney stones are one of the oldest known and common diseases in the urinary tract system. Various human studies have suggested that diets with a higher intake of vegetables and fruits play a role in the prevention of kidney stones. In this review, we have provided an overview of these dietary plants, their main chemical constituents, and their possible mechanisms of action. Camellia sinensis (...

Plant-microbe interactions are of particular importance in polluted soils. This study sought to determine how selected plants (horseradish, black nightshade and tobacco) and NPK mineral fertilization shape the structure of soil microbial communities in legacy contaminated soil and the resultant impact of treatment on the soil microbial community functional potential. To explore these objectives...

In fragmented landscapes, plant population persistence and community diversity can hinge upon plants dispersing seeds long distances between isolated patches of habitat. Landscape corridors, which connect otherwise isolated patches, have been shown to increase seed dispersal by birds moving between patch fragments. However, because bird behaviors change seasonally, the strength of this “corrido...

In order to identify genes involved in pathogenicity, we compared the closely related species Globodera pallida (GP) and Globodera "mexicana" (GM) that have different host ranges and are able to produce viable and fertile hybrids. Three pioneer genes were previously identified as differentially expressed between GP and GM: GPLIA7 and GPLIB3 were found to be more highly expressed in GP, whereas ...

Lunasin, a 44 amino acid soybean bioactive peptide, exhibits anticancer and anti-inflammatory properties. All soybean varieties that have been examined contain lunasin. It has also been reported in a few other plant species including amaranth, black nightshade, wheat, barley, rye, and triticale. Interestingly, detailed searches of transcriptome and DNA sequence databases of cereals failed to id...