No abstract

Agriculture plays an important role in a country's economy. The sector is challenged by many stresses, which led to huge loss in plant productivity worldwide. The everincreasing population, rapid urbanization with shrinking agricultural lands, dramatic change in climatic conditions, and extensive use of agrochemicals in agricultural practices that caused environmental disturbances confront mankind of escalating problems of food security and sustainability in agriculture. Escalating environmental problems and global hunger have led to the development and adoption of genetic engineering and other conventional plant breeding approaches in developing stresstolerant varieties of crops. However, these approaches have drawn flaws in their adoption as the process of generating tolerant varieties takes months to years in bringing the technology from the lab to the field. Under such scenario, sustainable and climate-smart agricultural practices that avail bacterial usage open the avenues in fulfilling the incessant demand for food for the global population. Ensuring stability on economic fronts, bacteria minimizes plant salt uptake by trapping ions in their exopolysaccharide matrix besides checking the expression of Na + /H + and high-affinity potassium transporters. Herein we describe information on salinity stress and its effect on plant health as well as strategies adopted by plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) in helping plants to overcome salinity stress and in mitigating loss in overall plant productivity. It is believed that acquisition of advanced knowledge of plant-beneficial PGPR will help in devising strategies for sustainable, environment-friendly, and climatesmart agricultural technologies for adoption in agriculture to overcome the constrained environmental conditions.

No abstract

No abstract

Blood metabolic profile (BMP) serve as clinical indicators for the impact of dietary manipulations on physiological health status. The present study was undertaken with the aim to assess the effect of in-feed supplementation of exogenous fibrolytic enzymes (EFE) cocktail as feed additive on BMP in lambs. Crossbred lambs (n=12) of 4-6 months age were distributed into two groups of 6 animals each and fed for a period of 90 days followed by 6 days metabolism trial. Animals in both the groups were offered complete feeds either supplemented with EFE cocktail @ 0.6% DM (Enz) or without any supplementation as control (Con). Haemato-biochemical parameters of animals in both the groups at start (0d) and subsequently at monthly intervals (30, 60 and 90d) were investigated. The EFE supplementation had positive significant (p<0.05) effect on dietary digestible energy content as well as total digestible nutrient intake (g/d) compared to control. However, there were non-significant (p>0.05) effects of EFE supplementation on overall means of all blood cell indices except mean platelet volume (p<0.05) and platelet percent (p<0.01), energy metabolic profile, serum lipid profiles except low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (p<0.05) and atherogenic index (p<0.01), and hepato-renal functioning test profiles. The BMP of EFE supplemented lambs revealed better physiological health status compared to un-supplemented animals. It is concluded that inclusion of EFE cocktail in complete diets for lambs have no adverse effects on the haemato-biochemical parameter suggesting in-feed supplementation of the EFE to improve animals's health conditions for successfully raising lambs intensively.

Plants are affected by various environmental stresses such as high or low temperatures, drought, and high salt levels, which can disrupt their normal cellular functioning and impact their growth and productivity. These stressors offer a major constraint to the morphological, physiological, and biochemical parameters; thereby attributing serious complications in the growth of crops such as rice, wheat, and corn. Considering the strategic and intricate association of soil microbiota, known as plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR), with the plant roots, PGPR helps plants to adapt and survive under changing environmental conditions and become more resilient to stress. They aid in nutrient acquisition and regulation of water content in the soil and also play a role in regulating osmotic balance and ion homeostasis. Boosting key physiological processes, they contribute significantly to the alleviation of stress and promoting the growth and development of plants. This review examines the use of PGPR in increasing plant tolerance to different stresses, focusing on their impact on water uptake, nutrient acquisition, ion homeostasis, and osmotic balance, as well as their effects on crop yield and food security.

Neurodegenerative diseases (NDs) are characterized by the accumulation of misfolded proteins. The hallmarks of protein aggregation in NDs proceed with impairment in the mitochondrial function, besides causing an enhancement in endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress, neuroinflammation and synaptic loss. As accumulation of misfolded proteins hampers normal neuronal functions, it triggers ER stress, which leads to the activation of downstream effectors formulating events along the signaling cascade—referred to as unfolded protein response (UPRER) —thereby controlling cellular gene expression. The absence of disease-modifying therapeutic targets in different NDs, and the exponential increase in the number of cases, makes it critical to explore new approaches to treating these devastating diseases. In one such approach, osmolytes (low molecular weight substances), such as taurine have been found to promote protein folding under stress conditions, thereby averting aggregation of the misfolded proteins. Maintaining the structural integrity of the protein, taurine-mediated resumption of protein folding prompts a shift in folding homeostasis more towards functionality than towards aggregation and degradation. Together, taurine enacts protection in NDs by causing misfolded proteins to refold, so as to regain their stability and functionality. The present study provides recent and useful insights into understanding the progression of NDs, besides summarizing the genetics of NDs in correlation with mitochondrial dysfunction, ER stress, neuroinflammation and synaptic loss. It also highlights the structural and functional aspects of taurine in imparting protection against the aggregation/misfolding of proteins, thereby shifting the focus more towards the development of effective therapeutic modules that could avert the development of NDs.

The changes in the land use and land cover (LULC), above ground biomass (AGB) and the associated above ground carbon (AGC) stocks were assessed in Lidder Valley, Kashmir Himalaya using satellite data , allometric equations and phytosociological data. Change detection analysis of LULC, comprising of eight vegetation and five non-vegetation types, indicated that 6% (74.5 km 2 ) of the dense evergreen forest has degraded. Degraded forest and settlement increased by 20 and 52.8 km 2 , respectively. Normalized difference vegetation index was assessed and correlated with the fieldbased biomass estimates to arrive at best-fit models for remotely sensed AGB estimates for 2005 and 2013. Total loss of 1.018 Megatons of AGB and 0.5 Megatons of AGC was estimated from the area during 33-year period which would have an adverse effect on the carbon sequestration potential of the area which is already facing the brunt of climate change.