623 Results Found

In this paper, the characteristics of 40 so far described virophages—parasites of giant viruses—are given, and the similarities and differences between virophages and satellite viruses, which also, like virophages, require helper viruses...

Silicon (Si) is known to stimulate plant resistance against different phytopathogens, i.e., bacteria, fungi, and nematodes. It is an efficient plant growth regulator under various biotic and abiotic stresses. Silicon-containing compounds, including s...

The stationary life of plants has led to the evolution of a complex gridded antioxidant defence system constituting numerous enzymatic components, playing a crucial role in overcoming various stress conditions. Mainly, these plant enzymes are superox...

Specialized metabolites constitute a major antioxidant system involved in plant defence against environmental constraints, such as tropospheric ozone (O₃). The objective of this experiment was to give a thorough description of the effects of an O₃ pu...

Host physical, chemical, and immune responses constitute well-established defences against bacterial invasion. Recent studies have highlighted the critical role of cellular mechanisms, particularly the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in a...

Bacteriophages are pervasive viruses that infect bacteria, relying on their genetic machinery to replicate. In order to protect themselves from this kind of invader, bacteria developed an ingenious adaptive defence system, clustered regularly intersp...

With the increasing diversity of remote sensing modalities, multimodal image fusion improves target recognition accuracy but also introduces new security risks. Adversaries can inject small, imperceptible perturbations into a single modality to misle...

The discovery, in 2004, of extracellular traps released by neutrophils has extended our understanding of the mode of action of various innate immune cells. This fascinating discovery demonstrated the extracellular trapping and killing of various path...

The occurrence of pharmaceuticals in various ecosystems is of growing concern as these compounds may affect different organisms, causing changes to their metabolism and possibly contributing to food chain contamination. Our study aims to understand h...

Plant health is an important aspect of food security, with pathogens, pests, and herbivores all contributing to yield losses in crops. Plants’ defence against pathogens is complex and utilises several metabolic processes, including the circadia...

Chili pepper (Capsicum spp.) is one of the most economically important horticultural crops in the world; its production for the food and pharmaceutical industries has been increasing worldwide. The economic importance of this crop is due, in part, to...

African swine fever virus (ASFV), a highly contagious and lethal virus affecting domestic and wild pigs, has raised global concerns due to its continued spread across Europe and Asia. While traditional transmission pathways involve suids and soft tic...

The type-I interferon (IFN) response constitutes the major innate immune pathway against viruses in mammals. Despite its critical importance for antiviral defence, this pathway is inactive during early embryonic development. There seems to be an inco...

Plants and insects coevolved as an evolutionarily successful and enduring association. The molecular arms race led to evolutionary novelties regarding unique mechanisms of defence and detoxification in plants and insects. While insects adopt mechanis...

Tetranychus urticae (T. urticae) Koch is a cosmopolitan, polyphagous mite which causes economic losses in both agricultural and ornamental plants. Some traits of T. urticae hamper its management, including a short life cycle, arrhenotokous parthenoge...

Insects infected with entomopathogenic fungi, experience physiological changes that influence their growth and immune defence. The potential of nine isolates of entomopathogenic fungi was evaluated after determining percent germination and relative c...

Climacteric rise in the rate of respiration and ethylene production in harvested persimmon (Diospyros kaki) fruits leads to early onset of fruit tissue senescence. Therefore, this study was carried out to maintain the quality of stored persimmons by...

Innate immunity is continuously revealing multiple and highly conserved host–defence mechanisms. Studies on mammalian immunocytes are showing different communication systems that may play a role in coordinating innate immune responses also in inverte...

With the push for higher efficiency and reliability, an increasing number of intelligent electronic devices (IEDs) and associated information and communication technology (ICT) are integrated into the Internet of Things (IoT)-enabled smart grid. Thes...

This study was conducted to investigate the effect of the duration of a flaxseed diet on fattening pigs’ antioxidant defence mechanism in blood and tissues. Eighteen 20-week-old Landrace breed fattening pigs (BW 76.61 ± 2.30 kg) were div...

In this study, an artificially simulated enhanced UV-B radiation treatment of 96 kJ/m²·d⁻¹ was applied with natural sunlight as the control. By observing changes in biological tissue damage, peroxidase (POD) enzyme activity, and hormone...

Monosodium glutamate (MSG) is the sodium salt of glutamic acid (GLA), used as a flavour enhancer. MSG is considered a controversial substance. It is incriminated in disturbing the antioxidant system, but also has beneficial effects, as GLA metabolism...

The COVID-19 pandemic significantly influenced people’s lives, with non-negligible consequences for the perception of well-being. This study sought to examine the effect of anxiety, post-traumatic impairment, and mature defenses on life satisfa...

Traditionally, indigenous African leafy vegetables such as Amaranthus, blackjack, jute mallow, cleome monophyla, and spider plants have been conventionally and organically grown as weeds in open fields. However, the lack of land space due to the incr...

Plant viruses rely on both host plant and vectors for a successful infection. Essentially to simplify studies, transmission has been considered for decades as an interaction between two partners, virus and vector. This interaction has gained a third...

Developing postharvest management techniques using environmentally friendly and non-chemical approaches is key to extending the shelf life of avocados in a safer and health conscious manner. Avocados are prone to postharvest deterioration caused by m...

Several ornamental species have demonstrated adaptive features that could increase their resilience to the current climate emergency but could also be linked to invasiveness in non-native environments. The present review examines the responses of orn...

Essential oils (EOs) are actively investigated as an alternative to numerous synthetic biocide products. Due to their large spectra of biological activities, the impact of EOs on non-target organisms should be characterized for biopesticide developme...

Protein therapeutics play an important role in controlling the functions and activities of disease-causing proteins in modern medicine. Despite protein therapeutics having several advantages over traditional small-molecule therapeutics, further devel...

Nitrogen (N) is one of the most important elements that has a central impact on plant growth and yield. N is also widely involved in plant stress responses, but its roles in host-pathogen interactions are complex as each affects the other. In this re...

The relevance of this study resides in the need to determine the key measures for a more effective application of the mechanism of public–private partnerships (PPP) in the implementation of large-scale infrastructure projects, aimed at developing the...

Phenotypic plasticity in defensive traits is an appropriate mechanism to cope with the variable hazard of a frequently changing predator spectrum. In the animal kingdom these so-called inducible defences cover the entire taxonomic range from protozoa...

Cannabis (Cannabis sativa L.) is one of the earliest cultivated crops, valued for producing a broad spectrum of compounds used in medicinal products and being a source of food and fibre. Despite the availability of its genome sequences, few studies e...

Plants and phytophagous arthropods have coevolved in a long battle for survival. Plants respond to phytophagous feeders by producing a battery of antiherbivore chemical defences, while herbivores try to adapt to their hosts by attenuating the toxic e...

This paper reviews the most recent progress in exploring silicon-mediated resistance to herbivorous insects and the mechanisms involved. The aim is to determine whether any mechanism seems more common than the others as well as whether the mechanisms...

Plants are constantly threatened by pathogens, so have evolved complex defence signalling networks to overcome pathogen attacks. Post-translational modifications (PTMs) are fundamental to plant immunity, allowing rapid and dynamic responses at the ap...

Canola (Brassica napus) is an important crop species grown worldwide for its seeds, which are crushed for edible oil. Canola production is threatened by blackleg disease, caused by the fungal pathogen Leptosphaeria maculans, which can lead up to 100%...

Recently, plant secondary metabolites are considered as important sources of pharmaceuticals, food additives, flavours, cosmetics, and other industrial products. The accumulation of secondary metabolites in plant cell and organ cultures often occurs...

Plant parasitic nematodes (PPNs), such as Meloidogyne spp., Heterodera spp. and Pratylenchus spp., are obligate parasites on a wide range of crops, causing significant agricultural production losses worldwide. These PPNs mainly feed on and within roo...

Plants depend on both preformed and inducible defence responses to defend themselves against biotic stresses stemming from pathogen attacks. In this regard, plants perceive pathogenic threats from the environment through pattern recognition receptors...

Vulvovaginal candidiasis (VVC) is a prevalent gynaecological disease characterised by vaginal wall inflammation that is caused by Candida species. VVC impacts almost three-quarters of all women throughout their reproductive years. As the vaginal muco...

Environmental pollution, increasing CO₂ atmospheric levels and the greenhouse effect are closely associated with the ongoing climate change and the extreme climatic events we are witnessing all over the Earth. Drought, high temperature and salinity a...

Plant viruses, as obligate intracellular parasites, rely exclusively on host machinery to complete their life cycle. Whether a virus is pathogenic or not depends on the balance between the mechanisms used by both plants and viruses during the intense...

Engagement of PRRs in recognition of PAMPs or DAMPs is one of the processes that initiates cellular stress. These sensors are involved in signaling pathways leading to induction of innate immune processes. Signaling initiated by PRRs is associated wi...

Plants recognise bacterial microbe-associated molecular patterns (MAMPs) from the environment via plasma membrane (PM)-localised pattern recognition receptor(s) (PRRs). Lipopolysaccharides (LPSs) are known as MAMPs from gram-negative bacteria that ar...

The larvae of frugivorous tephritid fruit flies feed within fruit and are global pests of horticulture. With the reduced use of pesticides, alternative control methods are needed, of which fruit resistance is one. In the current study, we explicitly...

The parasitic wasp Anaphes flavipes (Förster, 1841) (Hymenoptera: Mymaridae) is an important egg parasitoid of cereal leaf beetles. Some species of cereal leaf beetle co-occur in the same localities, but the host specificity of the wasp to these...

The prolonged arms race between plants and their antagonists has resulted in the evolution of multiple plant defence mechanisms to combat attacks by pests and pathogens. Silicon (Si) accumulation occurs mainly in grasses and provides a physical barri...

Potato early blight is caused by the necrotrophic fungus Alternaria solani and can result in yield losses of up to 50% if left uncontrolled. At present, the disease is controlled by chemical fungicides, yet rapid development of fungicide resistance r...

Eukaryotic circular single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) viruses were known only to infect plants and vertebrates until the discovery of the isolated DNA mycovirus from the fungus Sclerotinia sclerotiorum. Similar viral sequences were reported from several ot...