Quality evaluation of Saudi honey harvested from the Asir province by using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC)

Sugar profile and hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) of Saudi honey were examined through high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) system equipped with refractive index and diode array detectors. The work was designed to assess the quality of various types of blossom honey i.e. Sider (Ziziphus spina-christi), Dhuhyana (Acacia asak), Sumra (Acacia tortilis), Qatada (Acacia hamulosa), Dhurum (Lavandula dentata), multiflora with majra (Hypoestes forskaolii), multiflora with herbs, Keena (Eucalyptus spp.) produced in the southwestern areas of the kingdom. Hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA), principal cluster analysis (PCA), and similarity and difference indices (SDI) were also applied to examine the possible grouping based on the studied quality parameters. Four main sugars (two monosaccharides i.e. fructose and glucose, two disaccharides i.e. sucrose and maltose) and HMF were investigated . The average values of fructose and glucose were in the range 33.10%–44.77% and 26.68%–37.91%, respectively. The maltose was present in all types of honey and its mean values were in the range of 0.37%–2.97%, while sucrose was absent in six types of honey, 0.25% in one unifloral honey, and 3.25% in one multi-floral honey. HMF was not detected in seven types of honey but was below the limit of quantification (0.13 mg/kg) in one type of honey. PCA displayed the accumulative variance of 79.96% for the initial two PCs suggesting that honey samples were not well distinguished by their sugar profile. Based on the sucrose and HMF contents, it was concluded that all types of blossom honey from the Asir province were of the best quality in the kingdom and met the international quality parameters.     

Non-destructive assessment of flesh firmness and dietary antioxidants of greenhouse-grown tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) at different fruit maturity stages

Non-destructive methods have been widely recognized for evaluating fruit quality traits of many horticultural crops and food processing industry. Destructive (analytical) test, and non-destructive evaluation of the quality traits were investigated and compared for ‘Red Rose’ tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) fruit grown under protected environment. Fresh tomato fruit at five distinctive maturity stages namely; breaker (BK), turning (TG), pink (PK), light-red (LR), and red (RD) were labeled and scanned using the handheld near infra-red (NIR) enhanced spectrometer at a wavelength range of 285–1200 nm. The labeled tomato samples were then measured analytically for flesh firmness, lycopene, β-carotene, total phenolic content (TPC) and total flavonoids content (TFC). The results revealed that quality traits could be estimated using NIR spectroscopy with a relatively high coefficient of determination (R²): 0.834 for total phenolic content, 0.864 for lycopene, 0.790 for total flavonoid content, 0.708 for β-carotene; and 0.679 for flesh firmness. The accumulation of Lyco and β-Car rapidly increased in tomatoes harvested between the TG and the LR maturity stages. Harvesting tomatoes at BK maturity stage resulted in significantly higher flesh firmness than harvesting at the later maturity stages. Tomato fruits had the lowest TPC and TFC contents at the earliest maturity stage (BK), while they had intermediate TPC and TFC levels at LR and RD maturity stages. NIR spectroscopic measurements of fruit firmness and lipophilic antioxidants in tomato fruit at various maturity stages were partially in accordance with those estimated by destructive (analytical) methods. Based on these findings, we recommend using non-destructive NIR spectroscopy as an effective tool for predicting tomato fruit quality during harvest stage and postharvest processing.     

Environment outweighs the effects of fishing in regulating demersal community structure in an exploited marine ecosystem

Global climate change has already caused bottom temperatures of coastal marine ecosystems to increase worldwide. These ecosystems face many pressures, of which fishing is one of the most important. While consequences of global warming on commercial species are studied extensively, the importance of the increase in bottom temperature and of variation in fishing effort is more rarely considered together in these exploited ecosystems. Using a 17 year time series from an international bottom trawl survey, we investigated covariations of an entire demersal ecosystem (101 taxa) with the environment in the Celtic Sea. Our results showed that over the past two decades, biotic communities in the Celtic Sea were likely controlled more by environmental variables than fisheries, probably due to its long history of exploitation. At the scale of the entire zone, relations between taxa and the environment remained stable over the years, but at a local scale, in the center of the Celtic Sea, dynamics were probably driven by interannual variation in temperature. Fishing was an important factor structuring species assemblages at the beginning of the time series (2000) but decreased in importance after 2009. This was most likely caused by a change in spatial distribution of fishing effort, following a change in targeted taxa from nephrops to deeper water anglerfish that did not covary with fishing effort. Increasing bottom temperatures could induce additional changes in the coming years, notably in the cold‐water commercial species cod, hake, nephrops, and American plaice. We showed that analyzing covariation is an effective way to screen a large number of taxa and highlight those that may be most susceptible to future simultaneous increases in temperature and changes in exploitation pattern by fisheries. This information can be particularly relevant for ecosystem assessments.     

Multiple trade‐offs regulate the effects of woody plant removal on biodiversity and ecosystem functions in global rangelands

Woody plant encroachment is a major land management issue. Woody removal often aims to restore the original grassy ecosystem, but few studies have assessed the role of woody removal on ecosystem functions and biodiversity at global scales. We collected data from 140 global studies and evaluated how different woody plant removal methods affected biodiversity (plant and animal diversity) and ecosystem functions (plant production, hydrological function, soil carbon) across global rangelands. Our results indicate that the impact of removal is strongly context dependent, varying with the specific response variable, removal method, and traits of the target species. Over all treatments, woody plant removal increased grass biomass and total groundstorey diversity. Physical and chemical removal methods increased grass biomass and total groundstorey biomass (i.e., non‐woody plants, including grass biomass), but burning reduced animal diversity. The impact of different treatment methods declined with time since removal, particularly for total groundstorey biomass. Removing pyramid‐shaped woody plants increased total groundstorey biomass and hydrological function but reduced total groundstorey diversity. Environmental context (e.g., aridity and soil texture) indirectly controlled the effect of removal on biomass and biodiversity by influencing plant traits such as plant shape, allelopathic, or roots types. Our study demonstrates that a one‐size‐fits‐all approach to woody plant removal is not appropriate, and that consideration of woody plant identity, removal method, and environmental context is critical for optimizing removal outcomes. Applying this knowledge is fundamental for maintaining diverse and functional rangeland ecosystems as we move toward a drier and more variable climate.     

Next generation sequencing and functional pathway analysis to understand the mechanism of action of copper-tolfenamic acid against pancreatic cancer cells

Anti-cancer activity of tolfenamic acid (TA) in preclinical models for pancreatic cancer (PaCa) is well established. Since the dosage for anti-cancer actions of TA is rather high, we recently demonstrated that IC₅₀ values of Copper-TA are 30–80% less than TA in 12 cancer cell lines. This study elucidates the underlying mechanisms of Copper-TA in PaCa cells. Control and Copper-TA (IC₅₀) treated PaCa cells were processed by next-generation sequencing (NGS) to determine differentially expressed genes using HTG EdgeSeq Oncology Biomarker panel. Ingenuity Pathway Analysis (IPA®) was used to identify functional significance of altered genes. The conformational studies for assessing the expression of key regulators and genes were conducted by Western blot and qPCR. IPA® identified several networks, regulators, as well as molecular and cellular functions associated with cancer. The top 5 molecular and cellular functions affected by Cu-TA treatment were cell death and survival, cellular development, cell growth and proliferation, cell cycle and cellular movement. The expression of top upstream regulators was confirmed by Western blot analysis while qPCR results of selected genes demonstrated that Copper-TA is efficacious at lower doses than TA. Results suggest that Copper-TA alters genes/key regulators associated with cancer and potentially serve as an effective anti-cancer agent.     

Four-dimensional imaging with virtual reality to quantitatively explore jigsaw puzzle-like morphogenesis of Arabidopsis cotyledon pavement cells

In most dicotyledonous plants, leaf pavement cells exhibit complex jigsaw puzzle-like cell morphogenesis during leaf expansion. Although detailed molecular biological information and mathematical modeling of this jigsaw puzzle-like cell morphogenesis are now available, a full understanding of this process remains elusive. Recent reports have highlighted the importance of three-dimensional (3D) structures (i.e., anticlinal and periclinal cell wall) in understanding the mechanical models that describe this morphogenetic process. We believe that it is important to acquire 3D shapes of pavement cells over time, i.e., acquire and analyze four-dimensional (4D) information when studying the relationship between mechanical modeling and simulations and the actual cell shape. In this report, we have developed a framework to capture and analyze 4D morphological information of Arabidopsis thaliana cotyledon pavement cells by using both direct water immersion observations and computational image analyses, including segmentation, surface modeling, virtual reality and morphometry. The 4D cell models allowed us to perform time-lapse 3D morphometrical analysis, providing detailed quantitative information about changes in cell growth rate and shape, with cellular complexity observed to increase during cell growth. The framework should enable analysis of various phenotypes (e.g., mutants) in greater detail, especially in the 3D deformation of the cotyledon surface, and evaluation of theoretical models that describe pavement cell morphogenesis using computational simulations. Additionally, our accurate and high-throughput acquisition of growing cell structures should be suitable for use in generating in silico model cell structures.     

Long‐term research avoids spurious and misleading trends in sustainability attributes of no‐till

Agricultural management recommendations based on short‐term studies can produce findings inconsistent with long‐term reality. Here, we test the long‐term environmental sustainability and profitability of continuous no‐till agriculture on yield, soil water availability, and N₂O fluxes. Using a moving window approach, we investigate the development and stability of several attributes of continuous no‐till as compared to conventional till agriculture over a 29‐year period at a site in the upper Midwest, US. Over a decade is needed to detect the consistent effects of no‐till. Both crop yield and soil water availability required 15 years or longer to generate patterns consistent with 29‐year trends. Only marginal trends for N₂O fluxes appeared in this period. Relative profitability analysis suggests that after initial implementation, 86% of periods between 10 and 29 years recuperated the initial expense of no‐till implementation, with the probability of higher relative profit increasing with longevity. Importantly, statistically significant but misleading short‐term trends appeared in more than 20% of the periods examined. Results underscore the importance of decadal and longer studies for revealing consistent dynamics and emergent outcomes of no‐till agriculture, shown to be beneficial in the long term.     

Influence of ethanol concentration of extraction solvent on metabolite profiling for Salviae Miltiorrhizae Radix et Rhizoma extract by 1H NMR spectroscopy and multivariate data analysis

Salviae Miltiorrhizae Radix et Rhizoma (Danshen in China) and its related preparations are widely used in clinical practice due to its high medicinal value. In recent years, ¹H NMR technology has made great progress and demonstrated its unique advantages in the field of botanical metabolomics. In this study, ¹H NMR-based metabolomics was used to investigate the dissolution of various metabolites in Danshen as a function of ethanol concentration. ¹H NMR spectroscopy of Danshen extract identified 28 metabolites including 6 sugars, 11 amino acids, 3 organic acids, 4 salvianolic acids, and 4 tanshinones. Multivariate statistical analysis was used to classify and compare various Danshen extracts. PCA and HCA were used to obtain a global overview of the similarity in the samples and two-class OPLS-DA models were established for identifying characteristic metabolites. Then, ¹H-qNMR method was used to estimate the concentration of 22 metabolites, which is helpful to further describe the changes in metabolite ratios of various Danshen extracts. The result of this study laid the foundation for further biological activity research, and also provided an important reference for subsequent process research and quality control of Danshen related preparations.