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Plants evolve diverse mechanisms to eliminate the drastic effect of biotic and abiotic stresses. Drought is the most hazardous abiotic stress causing huge losses to crop yield worldwide. Osmotic stress decreases relative water and chlorophyll content and increases the accumulation of osmolytes, epicuticular wax content, antioxidant enzymatic activities, reactive oxygen species, secondary metabolites, membrane lipid peroxidation, and abscisic acid. Plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) eliminate the effect of drought stress by altering root morphology, regulating the stress-responsive genes, producing phytohormones, osmolytes, siderophores, volatile organic compounds, and exopolysaccharides, and improving the 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate deaminase activities. The use of PGPR is an alternative approach to traditional breeding and biotechnology for enhancing crop productivity. Hence, that can promote drought tolerance in important agricultural crops and could be used to minimize crop losses under limited water conditions. This review deals with recent progress on the use of PGPR to eliminate the harmful effects of drought stress in traditional agriculture crops.

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Objective:To assess the knowledge and attitude regarding Ebola virus disease (EVD) among medical students of Rawalpindi.Methods:A descriptive cross sectional study was carried out in a medical college of Rawalpindi from September 2014-November 2014. About 400 students were inducted with 77% (n=308) response rate. After taking informed verbal consent from students and administration, a pre-designed and pre-tested questionnaire was circulated among students of third, fourth and final year MBBS as well as third and fourth year BDS. The data collected was entered and analyzed using SPSS 20.Results:The response rate was 77% (308/400). About 244 (79.2%) of students had heard about EVD before. One hundred and sixty four (53.2%) of the students correctly identified that no treatment is available for EVD as yet. Also 163 (52.9%) said that no vaccine was available against the virus either. Washing hands every time after touching a patient in clinics/wards was important for 151 (49.0%) while 223 (72.4%) claimed to use proper techniques to dispose off used injections.Conclusion:Students have basic knowledge regarding EVD. However, there is deficient information regarding the diagnosis and precautionary measures required to control it.

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Phytohormones play an essential role in plant growth and development in response to environmental stresses. However, plant hormones require a complex signaling network combined with other signaling pathways to perform their proper functions. Thus, multiple phytohormonal signaling pathways are a prerequisite for understanding plant defense mechanism against stressful conditions. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are master regulators of eukaryotic gene expression and are also influenced by a wide range of plant development events by suppressing their target genes. In recent decades, the mechanisms of phytohormone biosynthesis, signaling, pathways of miRNA biosynthesis and regulation were profoundly characterized. Recent findings have shown that miRNAs and plant hormones are integrated with the regulation of environmental stress. miRNAs target several components of phytohormone pathways, and plant hormones also regulate the expression of miRNAs or their target genes inversely. In this article, recent developments related to molecular linkages between miRNAs and phytohormones were reviewed, focusing on drought stress.

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