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Journal of Plant Physiology Sep 2016Daniel Arnon first proposed the notion of a 'grand design of photosynthesis' in 1982 to illustrate the central role of photosynthesis as the primary energy transformer... (Review)
Review
Daniel Arnon first proposed the notion of a 'grand design of photosynthesis' in 1982 to illustrate the central role of photosynthesis as the primary energy transformer for all life on Earth. However, we suggest that this concept can be extended to the broad impact of photosynthesis not only in global energy transformation but also in the regulation of plant growth, development, survival and crop productivity through chloroplast redox signalling. We compare and contrast the role of chloroplast redox imbalance, measured as excitation pressure, in governing acclimation to abiotic stress and phenotypic plasticity. Although all photoautrophs sense excessive excitation energy through changes in excitation pressure, the response to this chloroplast redox signal is species dependent. Due to a limited capacity to adjust metabolic sinks, cyanobacteria and green algae induce photoprotective mechanisms which dissipate excess excitation energy at a cost of decreased photosynthetic performance. In contrast, terrestrial, cold tolerant plants such as wheat enhance metabolic sink capacity which leads to enhanced photosynthetic performance and biomass accumulation with minimal dependence on photoprotection. We suggest that the family of nuclear C-repeat binding transcription factors (CBFs) associated with the frost resistance locus, FR2, contiguous with the vernalization locus,VRN1, and mapped to chromosome 5A of wheat, may be critical components that link leaf chloroplast redox regulation to enhanced photosynthetic performance, the accumulation of growth-active gibberellins and the dwarf phenotype during cold acclimation prior to the vegetative to reproductive transition controlled by vernalization in winter cereals. Further genetic, molecular and biochemical research to confirm these links and to elucidate the molecular mechanism by which chloroplast redox modulation of CBF expression leads to enhanced photosynthetic performance is required. Because of the superior abiotic stress tolerance of cold tolerant winter wheat and seed yields that historically exceed those of spring wheat by 30-40%, we discuss the potential to exploit winter cereals for the maintenance or perhaps even the enhancement of cereal productivity under future climate change scenarios that will be required to feed a growing human population.
Topics: Acclimatization; Climate Change; Crops, Agricultural; Photosynthesis; Signal Transduction; Stress, Physiological
PubMed: 27185597
DOI: 10.1016/j.jplph.2016.04.006 -
Trends in Ecology & Evolution Oct 2020Studies suggest that many species are already living close to their upper physiological thermal limits. Phenotypic plasticity is thought to be an important mechanism for... (Review)
Review
Studies suggest that many species are already living close to their upper physiological thermal limits. Phenotypic plasticity is thought to be an important mechanism for species to counter rapid environmental change, yet the extent to which plastic responses may buffer projected climate change - and what limits the evolution of plasticity - is still unclear. The tolerance-plasticity trade-off hypothesis predicts that the evolution of plasticity may be constrained by a species' thermal tolerance. Empirical evidence is equivocal, but we argue that inconsistent patterns likely reflect problems in experimental design/analysis, limiting our ability to detect and interpret trade-off patterns. Here, we address why we may, or may not see tolerance-plasticity trade-offs and outline a framework addressing current limitations, focusing on understanding the underlying mechanisms.
Topics: Acclimatization; Adaptation, Physiological; Climate Change; Thermotolerance
PubMed: 32513551
DOI: 10.1016/j.tree.2020.05.006 -
PloS One 2023The uncertainty of climate change's impacts hinders adaptation actions, particularly micro-scale urban design interventions. This paper proposes a sixfold urban design...
The uncertainty of climate change's impacts hinders adaptation actions, particularly micro-scale urban design interventions. This paper proposes a sixfold urban design framework to assess and enhance the resilience of urban form to climate change, where urban form refers to the patterns of streets, buildings, and land uses. The framework is then applied to Long Bay in Negril, Jamaica-a coastal area that incorporates the complex interactions between urbanization and a highly vulnerable socio-ecological system to climate change-related hazards, primarily sea-level rise. Empirical evidence from 19 in-depth interviews with planning and design professionals and development actors, in situ observations, and morphological analyses reveal that Long Bay's current adaptation strategies heavily rely on bounce-back resilience measures that predominantly consider the impacts of extreme climatic events rather than slow-onset ones. Such strategies abet current tourism-driven development patterns while overlooking Long Bay's inherent abilities for generative transformation and incremental changes to meet climatic uncertainty. Instead, this study's findings highlight how generative urban form transformation would better equip Long Bay to cope with future uncertainty-climatic or other.
Topics: Jamaica; Ecosystem; Climate Change; Uncertainty; Acclimatization
PubMed: 37352240
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0287364 -
International Journal of Molecular... Jun 2023The narrow genomic diversity of modern cultivars is a major bottleneck for enhancing the crop's salinity stress tolerance. The close relatives of modern cultivated... (Review)
Review
The narrow genomic diversity of modern cultivars is a major bottleneck for enhancing the crop's salinity stress tolerance. The close relatives of modern cultivated plants, crop wild relatives (CWRs), can be a promising and sustainable resource to broaden the diversity of crops. Advances in transcriptomic technologies have revealed the untapped genetic diversity of CWRs that represents a practical gene pool for improving the plant's adaptability to salt stress. Thus, the present study emphasizes the transcriptomics of CWRs for salinity stress tolerance. In this review, the impacts of salt stress on the plant's physiological processes and development are overviewed, and the transcription factors (TFs) regulation of salinity stress tolerance is investigated. In addition to the molecular regulation, a brief discussion on the phytomorphological adaptation of plants under saline environments is provided. The study further highlights the availability and use of transcriptomic resources of CWR and their contribution to pangenome construction. Moreover, the utilization of CWRs' genetic resources in the molecular breeding of crops for salinity stress tolerance is explored. Several studies have shown that cytoplasmic components such as calcium and kinases, and ion transporter genes such as Salt Overly Sensitive 1 () and High-affinity Potassium Transporters () are involved in the signaling of salt stress, and in mediating the distribution of excess Na ions within the plant cells. Recent comparative analyses of transcriptomic profiling through RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) between the crops and their wild relatives have unraveled several TFs, stress-responsive genes, and regulatory proteins for generating salinity stress tolerance. This review specifies that the use of CWRs transcriptomics in combination with modern breeding experimental approaches such as genomic editing, de novo domestication, and speed breeding can accelerate the CWRs utilization in the breeding programs for enhancing the crop's adaptability to saline conditions. The transcriptomic approaches optimize the crop genomes with the accumulation of favorable alleles that will be indispensable for designing salt-resilient crops.
Topics: Transcriptome; Plant Breeding; Gene Expression Profiling; Genomics; Salt Tolerance; Salinity
PubMed: 37372961
DOI: 10.3390/ijms24129813 -
Trends in Ecology & Evolution Sep 2016During times of rapid environmental change, survival of most vertebrate populations depends on their phenomic plasticity. Although differential gene-expression and... (Review)
Review
During times of rapid environmental change, survival of most vertebrate populations depends on their phenomic plasticity. Although differential gene-expression and post-transcriptional processes of the host genome receive focus as the main molecular mechanisms, growing evidence points to the gut microbiota as a key driver defining hosts' phenotypes. We propose that the plasticity of the gut microbiota might be an essential factor determining phenomic plasticity of vertebrates, and that it might play a pivotal role when vertebrates acclimate and adapt to fast environmental variation. We contemplate some key questions and suggest methodological approaches and experimental designs that can be used to evaluate whether gut microorganisms provide a boost of plasticity to vertebrates' phenomes, thereby increasing their acclimation and adaptation capacity.
Topics: Acclimatization; Adaptation, Physiological; Animals; Ecology; Metagenome; Vertebrates
PubMed: 27453351
DOI: 10.1016/j.tree.2016.06.008 -
Journal of Experimental Botany Jun 2019Plants adjust their photosynthetic capacity in response to their environment in a way that optimizes their yield and fitness. There is growing evidence that this... (Review)
Review
Plants adjust their photosynthetic capacity in response to their environment in a way that optimizes their yield and fitness. There is growing evidence that this acclimation is a response to changes in the leaf metabolome, but the extent to which these are linked and how this is optimized remain poorly understood. Using as an example the metabolic perturbations occurring in response to cold, we define the different stages required for acclimation, discuss the evidence for a metabolic temperature sensor, and suggest further work towards designing climate-smart crops. In particular, we discuss how constraint-based and kinetic metabolic modelling approaches can be used to generate targeted hypotheses about relevant pathways, and argue that a stronger integration of experimental and in silico studies will help us to understand the tightly regulated interplay of carbon partitioning and resource allocation required for photosynthetic acclimation to different environmental conditions.
Topics: Acclimatization; Climate; Crops, Agricultural; Light; Photosynthesis; Plant Leaves
PubMed: 30997505
DOI: 10.1093/jxb/erz157 -
The Journal of Physiology Feb 2023In recent years, there has been an explosion of new approaches (technological, methodological, pharmacological, etc.) designed to improve physical performance for... (Review)
Review
In recent years, there has been an explosion of new approaches (technological, methodological, pharmacological, etc.) designed to improve physical performance for athletes, the military and in other applications. The goal of the present discussion is to review and quantify several ways in which physiology can provide important insights about which tools may lead to improved performance (and may therefore be worth resource investment) and which tools are less likely to provide meaningful enhancement. To address these objectives, we review examples of technological solutions/approaches in terms of the magnitude of their potential (or actual) influences: transformational, moderate, ineffective or undetermined. As one example, if there were a technology which significantly increased arterial oxygen partial pressure by 10%, this would be relatively meaningless in healthy people resting at sea level, where it would have a minimal effect on arterial oxygen content. However, there might be specific situations where such an effect would be very helpful, including at high altitude or in some patient populations. We discuss the importance of quantitative evaluation of putative approaches to performance enhancement and highlight the important role of integrative physiologists in the development and critical appraisal of these approaches.
Topics: Humans; Altitude; Hypoxia; Acclimatization; Oxygen Consumption; Oxygen; Physical Endurance
PubMed: 36518016
DOI: 10.1113/JP283975 -
European Journal of Applied Physiology Dec 2020Herein, the principles of homoeostasis are re-visited, but with an emphasis upon repeated homoeostatic disturbances that give rise to physiological adaptation. The... (Review)
Review
Herein, the principles of homoeostasis are re-visited, but with an emphasis upon repeated homoeostatic disturbances that give rise to physiological adaptation. The central focus is human heat adaptation, and how, for experimental purposes, one might standardise successive adaptation stimuli, and then evaluate and compare the resulting adaptations. To provide sufficient background for that discussion, the principles of physiological control and regulation have been reviewed. The case is presented that, since it is the regulated variables that drive both the effector organs and the processes of physiological adaptation, then it is those variables (e.g., body temperature) that should be used to set and standardise the adaptation stimuli. Alternatively, some have proposed that the same outcome can be achieved through standardising a controlled variable (e.g., heart rate), and so the merits of that proposition are evaluated. Indeed, it can be an effective approach, although some experimental pitfalls are described to highlight its limitations with regard to between-group (e.g., able-bodied versus spinal-injured participants) and between-treatment comparisons (e.g., hot-water versus hot-air adaptation stimuli). The concept of setting the adaptation stimulus relative to an anaerobic or lactate threshold is also critically evaluated. Finally, an appraisal is offered concerning the merits of three different strategies for using deep-body and mean body temperature changes for evaluating thermoeffector adaptations.
Topics: Adaptation, Physiological; Body Temperature Regulation; Homeostasis; Hot Temperature; Humans; Research Design; Thermotolerance
PubMed: 32926190
DOI: 10.1007/s00421-020-04489-0 -
Journal of Perinatology : Official... Jul 2005To characterize vernix caseosa in newborn infants with respect to factors that influence vernix distribution on the skin surface, vernix effects on thermal stability,... (Review)
Review
OBJECTIVES
To characterize vernix caseosa in newborn infants with respect to factors that influence vernix distribution on the skin surface, vernix effects on thermal stability, skin hydration, acid mantle development, and vernix antioxidant properties.
STUDY DESIGN
Vernix distribution was determined for 430 infants. Thermal stability was assessed in parallel groups following vernix retention (n=66) and removal (n=64). The effects of vernix retention on skin hydration, pH, erythema, and dryness/scaling were determined. Samples were analyzed for vitamin E before and after UV exposure.
RESULTS
Vernix distribution depended upon gestational age, delivery mode, gender, race, and meconium exposure. Retention had no effect on axillary temperatures. Skin hydration was significantly higher for vernix-retained skin. Skin pH and erythema were significantly lower with retention. Vitamin E levels were decreased by ultraviolet radiation.
CONCLUSIONS
Vernix is a naturally occurring barrier cream with multiple salubrious effects, which support its retention on the skin surface at birth.
Topics: Acclimatization; Body Temperature Regulation; Female; Gestational Age; Humans; Infant, Newborn; Male; Skin Physiological Phenomena; Surface Properties; Vernix Caseosa; Vitamin E
PubMed: 15830002
DOI: 10.1038/sj.jp.7211305 -
International Journal of Molecular... Jan 2022Due to the economic and ecological importance of forest trees, modern breeding and genetic manipulation of forest trees have become increasingly prevalent. The... (Review)
Review
Due to the economic and ecological importance of forest trees, modern breeding and genetic manipulation of forest trees have become increasingly prevalent. The CRISPR-based technology provides a versatile, powerful, and widely accepted tool for analyzing gene function and precise genetic modification in virtually any species but remains largely unexplored in forest species. Rapidly accumulating genetic and genomic resources for forest trees enabled the identification of numerous genes and biological processes that are associated with important traits such as wood quality, drought, or pest resistance, facilitating the selection of suitable gene editing targets. Here, we introduce and discuss the latest progress, opportunities, and challenges of genome sequencing and editing for improving forest sustainability.
Topics: Acclimatization; CRISPR-Cas Systems; Forests; Gene Editing; Genome, Plant; Plant Breeding; Trees; Whole Genome Sequencing
PubMed: 35055150
DOI: 10.3390/ijms23020966