Integrated metabolome and transcriptome analyses provide insight into the effect of red and blue LEDs on the quality of sweet potato leaves

Red and blue light-emitting diodes (LEDs) affect the quality of sweet potato leaves and their nutritional profile. Vines cultivated under blue LEDs had higher soluble protein contents, total phenolic compounds, flavonoids, and total antioxidant activity. Conversely, chlorophyll, soluble sugar, protein, and vitamin C contents were higher in leaves grown under red LEDs. Red and blue light increased the accumulation of 77 and 18 metabolites, respectively. Alpha-linoleic and linolenic acid metabolism were the most significantly enriched pathways based on Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway analyses. A total of 615 genes were differentially expressed between sweet potato leaves exposed to red and blue LEDs. Among these, 510 differentially expressed genes were upregulated in leaves grown under blue light compared with those grown under red light, while the remaining 105 genes were expressed at higher levels in the latter than in the former. Among the KEGG enrichment pathways, blue light significantly induced anthocyanin and carotenoid biosynthesis structural genes. This study provides a scientific reference basis for using light to alter metabolites to improve the quality of edible sweet potato leaves

Regulation of invertase and sucrose for improving tomato fruit flavor: A review

Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) is a commercially farmed vegetable belonging to the Solanaceae family, the third most important vegetable after potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) and onion (Allium cepa L.). It is cultivated for its fresh fruits and processed paste, with over 153 million metric tons of global production. However, modern tomato cultivars have limited sugars, acids, and volatiles allelic diversity as flavor has generally been less prioritized in breeding programs. Invertase is an essential regulator of flavor and sugar metabolism in tomato. Genetic control of tomato flavor is still incomplete without a clear understanding of the roles of invertase and sucrose metabolism. This review provides an overview of our current understanding of the invertase mode of action in sucrose metabolism, their evolutionary and functional divergence in the tomato genome, role in stress response, genetic and hormonal control of fruit flavor and quality. We summarized the primary roles of invertase in sugar metabolism and fruit flavor

Effect of Race on Prediction of Brain Amyloidosis by Plasma Aβ42/Aβ40, Phosphorylated Tau, and Neurofilament Light

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate whether plasma biomarkers of amyloid (Aβ42/Aβ40), tau (p-tau181 and p-tau231) and neuroaxonal injury (neurofilament light chain [NfL]) detect brain amyloidosis consistently across racial groups. METHODS: Individuals enrolled in studies of memory and aging who self-identified as African American (AA) were matched 1:1 to self-identified non-Hispanic White (NHW) individuals by age, APOE ε4 carrier status and cognitive status. Each participant underwent blood and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) collection, and amyloid PET was performed in 103 participants (68%). Plasma Aβ42/Aβ40 was measured by a high-performance immunoprecipitation-mass spectrometry assay. Plasma p-tau181, p-tau231, and NfL were measured by Simoa immunoassays. CSF Aβ42/Aβ40 and amyloid PET status were used as primary and secondary reference standards of brain amyloidosis, respectively. RESULTS: There were 76 matched pairs of AA and NHW participants (n=152 total). For both AA and NHW groups, the median age was 68.4 years, 42% were APOE ε4 carriers and 91% were cognitively normal. AA were less likely than NHW to have brain amyloidosis by CSF Aβ42/Aβ40 (22% versus 43% positive, p = 0.003). The Receiver Operating Characteristic Area Under the Curve (ROC AUC) of CSF Aβ42/Aβ40 status with the plasma biomarkers was as follows: Aβ42/Aβ40, 0.86 (95% confidence intervals [CI] 0.79-0.92); p-tau181, 0.76 (0.68-0.84); p-tau231, 0.69 (0.60-0.78); and NfL, 0.64 (0.55-0.73). In models predicting CSF Aβ42/Aβ40 status with plasma Aβ42/Aβ40 that included covariates (age, sex, APOE ε4 carrier status, race, and cognitive status), race did not affect the probability of CSF Aβ42/Aβ40 positivity. In similar models based on plasma p-tau181, p-tau231 or Nfl, AA had a lower probability of CSF Aβ42/Aβ40 positivity (Odds Ratio [OR] 0.31 [95% CI 0.13-0.73], OR 0.30 [0.13-0.71]) and OR 0.27 [0.12-0.64], respectively. Models of amyloid PET status yielded similar findings. CONCLUSIONS: Models predicting brain amyloidosis using a high performance plasma Aβ42/Aβ40 assay may provide an accurate and consistent measure of brain amyloidosis across AA and NHW groups, but models based on plasma p-tau181, p-tau231, and NfL may perform inconsistently and could result in disproportionate misdiagnosis of AA

Institutional Environments for Enabling Agricultural Technology Innovations: The Role of Land Rights in Ethiopia, Ghana, India and Bangladesh

Land rights are essential assets for improving the livelihoods of the rural poor. This literature based paper shed light to some land rights issues that are crucial for the effectiveness and sustainability of implementing technological innovations in marginalized rural areas of Ethiopia, Ghana, India and Bangladesh. By analysing country specific land right regimes, this paper aims to understand what institutional conditions might constitute barriers to the effective implementation of technological innovations and how they might be overcome. Land rights issues considered in this paper include public and private ownership of land in Ethiopia, customary and statutory law in Ghana, and gender equality and land rights in India and Bangladesh. A better understanding of institutional barriers for the effective implementation of technological innovations is a precondition for complementing technological with enabling institutional innovations and for improving priority setting, targeting and sequencing in the implementation of productivity increasing development measures

k-mer-Based Genome-Wide Association Studies in Plants: Advances, Challenges, and Perspectives

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have allowed the discovery of marker–trait associations in crops over recent decades. However, their power is hampered by a number of limitations, with the key one among them being an overreliance on single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) as molecular markers. Indeed, SNPs represent only one type of genetic variation and are usually derived from alignment to a single genome assembly that may be poorly representative of the population under study. To overcome this, k-mer-based GWAS approaches have recently been developed. k-mer-based GWAS provide a universal way to assess variation due to SNPs, insertions/deletions, and structural variations without having to specifically detect and genotype these variants. In addition, k-mer-based analyses can be used in species that lack a reference genome. However, the use of k-mers for GWAS presents challenges such as data size and complexity, lack of standard tools, and potential detection of false associations. Nevertheless, efforts are being made to overcome these challenges and a general analysis workflow has started to emerge. We identify the priorities for k-mer-based GWAS in years to come, notably in the development of user-friendly programs for their analysis and approaches for linking significant k-mers to sequence variation

Water security in rural Eastern Cape, SA: interrogating the impacts of politics and climate change

Achieving water security remains one of the central challenges to many developing countries today. According to the South African Water Research Commission, the availability of safe and affordable water is crucial in ensuring a healthy and productive life for all. Despite the national standards set to measure the quality of water in South Africa, the sources and ‘quality standards’ of water in rural Eastern Cape remain a major concern. Based on empirical research with 140 respondents and interactions; this paper highlights that most rural residents in the Eastern Cape still access water from dams, rivers and streams for domestic and agricultural purposes. Again, the availability of water throughout the year is not guaranteed due to changing global climatic conditions with both humans and livestock accessing water from same sources. The paper concludes that climate change and politico-administrative ‘negligence’ compound water insecurity in most of South Africa’s rural communities

Quantifying and Linking Sustainable Land - Water - Energy - Food Nexus Resources and Livelihoods of Local Community in Ethiopia

The sustainable management of Land - Water - Energy - Food (LWEF) nexus requires an envi-ronmental characterization that allows the comparison of complex interlinkages between nexus resources and livelihoods. This complexity makes this characterization difficult coupled with limited study in quantifying sustainability of LWEF nexus and its linkage with livelihood. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the link between sustainable LWEF nexus and livelihoods. We used analytical hierarchy process and pairwise comparison matrix in combina-tion with weighting model. The result of composite LWEF nexus index was 0.083 representing, low sustainability. This could be linked with nexus resources consumption, use, and manage-ment. From the analysis of the weight of land, water, energy and food nexus resources, the highest weight was observed for food. The focus of on food production only shows no clear synergy on provisioning, supporting or regulating nexus resources to address livelihoods. The result further showed that LWEF nexus resources have strong correlation with livelihoods. This was evidenced by social (r&amp;gt;0.8, P&amp;lt;0.01), natural (r&amp;gt;0.3, P&amp;lt;0.05) and physical (r&amp;gt;0.6, P&amp;lt;0.01) liveli-hood indicators showed strong positive correlation with LWEF nexus resources. From this re-sults, it was observed that managing nexus resources not only provide a significant contribution to achieve sustainable LWEF nexus, but also be effective for enhancing livelihood through food security. This could be attained by strong evidence based policy to ensure sustainable use of nexus resources. The results provided by this study would serve as the foundation for future study, policy formulation and implementation.</jats:p

Quantifying and linking Sustainable Land-water-energy-food nexus: A perspective of sustainable livelihoods in Gidabo Watershed, East African Rift Valley

Abstract BackgroundThe sustainable management of Land - Water - Energy - Food (LWEF) nexus requires an environmental characterization that allows the comparison of complex interlinkages between nexus resources and livelihoods. This complexity makes this characterization difficult coupled with limited study in quantifying sustainability of LWEF nexus and its linkage with livelihood. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the link between sustainable LWEF nexus and livelihoods. We used analytical hierarchy process and pairwise comparison matrix in combination with weighting model.ResultThe result of composite LWEF nexus index was 0.083 representing, low sustainability. This could be linked with nexus resources consumption, use, and management. From the analysis of the weight of land, water, energy and food nexus resources, the highest weight was observed for food. The focus of on food production only shows no clear synergy on provisioning, supporting or regulating nexus resources to address livelihoods. The result further showed that LWEF nexus resources have strong correlation with livelihoods. This was evidenced by social (r ≥ 0.8, P &lt; 0.01), natural (r ≥ 0.3, P &lt; 0.05) and physical (r ≥ 0.6, P &lt; 0.01) livelihood indicators showed strong positive correlation with LWEF nexus resources.ConclusionBased on the finding of the study, it was observed that managing nexus resources not only provide a significant contribution to achieve sustainable LWEF nexus, but also be effective for enhancing livelihood through food security. This could be attained by strong evidence based policy to ensure sustainable use of nexus resources. The results provided by this study would serve as the foundation for future study, policy formulation and implementation.</jats:p