Background: Drought is a major social and economic problem resulting in huge yield reduction in the field. Today's challenge is to develop plants with reduced water requirements and stable yields in fluctuating environmental conditions. Arabidopsis thaliana is an excellent model for identifying potential targets for plant breeding. Drought tolerance in the field was successfully conferred to crops by transferring genes from this model species. While involved in a plant genomics programme, which aims to identify new genes responsible for plant response to abiotic stress, we identified ESKIMO1 as a key gene involved in plant water economy as well as cold acclimation and salt tolerance.
Lawsonia inermis L. ou henné, est extrêmement réputé pour ses vertus cosmétiques, tinctoriales mais aussi médicinales. Cultivé dans les régions tropicales et subtropicales, le mode préférentiel dans les plantations industrielles des principales régions exportatrices du Moyen Orient, d'Asie et d'Afrique, est le semis. Cependant plusieurs contraintes limitant sa germination et sa multiplication à grande échelle au Togo ont été rapportées. Les graines entourées d'une coque dure et résistante germent difficilement au-delà de 20% et ne sont conservables qu'au plus trois mois. Cette étude vise la vulgarisation de la culture de cette espèce à valeur ajoutée au Togo. L'évaluation des effets de facteurs externes et endogènes sur la germination montre que la lumière est indispensable pour la germination. Les graines réagissent positivement à l'allongement de la photopériode de 0% à obscurité continue à 94% pour 16 h de lumière. L'enfouissement dans le substrat réduit drastiquement ce taux dès 5 mm de profondeur. Conservées à 25±2 °C sur huit mois en boîtes plastiques à l'obscurité, les graines révèlent une excellente capacité germinative dépassant les 93%. In vitro, elles germent à plus de 90% et les jeunes plants présentent une croissance régulière. Les conditions optimales de germination ainsi établies permettront donc la vulgarisation de la culture du henné.
This article describes the herbarium database of the University of Lomé. The database provides a good representation of the current knowledge of the flora of Togo. The herbarium of University of Lomé, known also as Herbarium togoense is the national herbarium and is registered in Index Herbariorum with the abbreviation TOGO. It contains 15,000 specimens of vascular plants coming mostly from all Togo's ecofloristic regions. Less than one percent of the specimens are from neighbouring countries such as Ghana, Benin and Burkina Faso. Collecting site details are specified in more that 97% of the sheet labels, but only about 50% contain geographic coordinates. Besides being a research resource, the herbarium constitutes an educational collection. The dataset described in this paper is registered with GBIF and accessible at https://www.gbif.org/dataset/b05dd467-aaf8-4c67-843c-27f049057b78. It was developed with the RIHA software (Réseau Informatique des Herbiers d'Afrique). The RIHA system (Chevillotte and Florence 2006, Radji et al. 2009) allows the capture of label data and associated information such as synonyms, vernacular names, taxonomic hierarchy and references.
This work reports for the first time, the analysis of intermolecular interactions in crystal structures of auxin (Indole-3-acetic acid) crystallized as pure sample (Aux-A) or co-crystallized with transport inhibitor response 1 (Aux-B). Using crystal packing of pure auxin and a cluster of residues in a radius of 6 Å around this ligand in the transport inhibitor response 1 binding domain, various properties were calculated and mapped on the Hirshfeld surface (HS). The HSs of the two molecules are characterized by close parameters of volume, area, globularity, and asphericity revealing the efficiency of the considered cluster. The HS mapped over descriptors like de, di and dnorm showed red spots corresponding to hydrogen bonds contacts. In addition to the shape index and curvedness descriptors, the results highlight weak interactions stabilizing the auxin structures. The analyses of electrostatic potential, electron density, and deformation density maps confirm the slightly change in the electron donor and acceptor groups localization. Furthermore, the molecular fingerprint analyses revealed a notable discrepancy in the shape and percentage value of the various contacts. Decomposition of the fingerprint shows that the contributions of important contacts (H···H, H···O, and O···O) are higher in Aux-B than in Aux-A. Finally, the quantitative approach by the determination of the molecular interaction energies of the two structures in their respective crystallographic environment revealed that Aux-A is slightly more stabilized than Aux-B.
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