ABSTRACT
Agriculture has supported human life from the beginning of civilization, despite a plethora of biotic (pests, pathogens) and abiotic (drought, cold) stressors being exerted on the global food demand. In the past 50 years, the enhanced understanding of cellular and molecular mechanisms in plants has led to novel innovations in biotechnology, resulting in the introduction of desired genes/traits through plant genetic engineering. Targeted genome editing technologies such as Zinc-Finger Nucleases (ZFNs), Transcription Activator-Like Effector Nucleases (TALENs), and Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) have emerged as powerful tools for crop improvement. This new CRISPR technology is proving to be an efficient and straightforward process with low cost. It possesses applicability across most plant species, targets multiple genes, and is being used to engineer plant metabolic pathways to create resistance to pathogens and abiotic stressors. These novel genome editing (GE) technologies are poised to meet the UN's sustainable development goals of "zero hunger" and "good human health and wellbeing." These technologies could be more efficient in developing transgenic crops and aid in speeding up the regulatory approvals and risk assessments conducted by the US Departments of Agriculture (USDA), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
ABSTRACT
Supplementing chemotherapy and radiotherapy with selenium has been shown to have benefits against various cancers. This approach has also been shown to alleviate the side effects associated with standard cancer therapies and improve the quality of life in patients. In addition, selenium levels in patients have been correlated with various cancers and have served as a diagnostic marker to track the efficiency of treatments or to determine whether these selenium levels cause or are a result of the disease. This concise review presents a survey of the selenium-based literature, with a focus on hematological malignancies, to demonstrate the significant impact of selenium in different cancers. The anti-cancer mechanisms and signaling pathways regulated by selenium, which impart its efficacious properties, are discussed. An outlook into the relationship between selenium and cancer is highlighted to guide future cancer therapy development.
Subject(s)
Hematologic Neoplasms , Neoplasms , Selenium , Hematologic Neoplasms/drug therapy , Humans , Neoplasms/drug therapy , Quality of Life , Selenium/metabolismABSTRACT
ABSTRACT Systemic acquired resistance (SAR) is an induced defense response that confers long-lasting protection against a broad range of microbial pathogens. Here we show that treatment of Brassica napus plants with the SAR-inducing chemical benzo-(1,2,3)-thiadiazole-7-carbothioic acid S-methyl ester (BTH) significantly enhanced resistance against virulent strains of the bacterial pathogen Pseudomonas syringae pv. maculicola and the fungal pathogen Leptosphaeria maculans. Localized preinoculation of plants with an avirulent strain of P. syringae pv. maculicola also enhanced resistance to these pathogens but was not as effective as BTH treatment. Single applications of either SAR-inducing pretreatment were effective against P. syringae pv. maculicola, even when given more than 3 weeks prior to the secondary challenge. The pretreatments also led to the accumulation of pathogenesis-related (PR) genes, including BnPR-1 and BnPR-2, with higher levels of transcripts observed in the BTH-treatment material. B. napus plants expressing a bacterial salicylate hydroxylase transgene (NahG) that metabolizes salicylic acid to catechol were substantially compromised in SAR and accumulated reduced levels of PR gene transcripts when compared with untransformed controls. Thus, SAR in B. napus displays many of the hallmarks of classical SAR including long lasting and broad host range resistance, association with PR gene activation, and a requirement for salicylic acid.
