Bamboos are an important member of the subfamily Bambusoideae, family Poaceae. The plant group exhibits wide variation with respect to the timing (1–120 years) and nature (sporadic vs. gregarious) of flowering among species. Usually flowering in woody bamboos is synchronous across culms growing over a large area, known as gregarious flowering. In many monocarpic bamboos this is followed by mass death and seed setting. While in sporadic flowering an isolated wild clump may flower, set little or no seed and remain alive. Such wide variation in flowering time and extent means that the plant group serves as repositories for genes and expression patterns that are unique to bamboo. Due to the dearth of available genomic and transcriptomic resources, limited studies have been undertaken to identify the potential molecular players in bamboo flowering. The public release of the first bamboo genome sequence Phyllostachys heterocycla, availability of related genomes Brachypodium distachyon and Oryza sativa provide us the opportunity to study this long-standing biological problem in a comparative and functional genomics framework. We identified bamboo genes homologous to those of Oryza and Brachypodium that are involved in established pathways such as vernalization, photoperiod, autonomous, and hormonal regulation of flowering. Additionally, we investigated triggers like stress (drought), physiological maturity and micro RNAs that may play crucial roles in flowering. We also analyzed available transcriptome datasets of different bamboo species to identify genes and their involvement in bamboo flowering. Finally, we summarize potential research hurdles that need to be addressed in future research.

Piper betle L. (synonym: Piper betel Blanco), or betel vine, an economically and medicinally important cash crop, belongs to the family Piperaceae, often known as the green gold. The plant can be found all over the world and is cultivatedprimarily in South East Asian countries for its beautiful glossy heart‐shaped leaves, which are chewed or consumed as betelquidand widely used in Chinese and Indian folk medicine, as carminative, stimulant,astringent, against parasitic worms, conjunctivitis, rheumatism, wound, etc., andis also used for religious purposes. Hydroxychavicol is the most important bioactive compound among the wide range of phytoconstituents found in essential oil and extracts. The pharmacological attributes of P . betle are antiproliferation, anticancer, neuropharmacological, analgesic, antioxidant, antiulcerogenic, hepatoprotective, antifertility, antibacterial, antifungal and many more. Immense attention has been paid to nanoformulations and their applications. The application of P . betle did not show cytotoxicity in preclinical experiments, suggesting that it could serve as a promising therapeutic candidate for different diseases. The present review comprehensively summarizes the botanical description, geographical distribution, economic value and cultivation, ethnobotanical uses, preclinical pharmacological properties with insights of toxicological, clinical efficacy, and safety of P . betle . The findings suggest that P . betle represents an orally active and safe natural agent that exhibits great therapeutic potential for managing various human medical conditions. However, further research is needed to elucidate its underlying molecular mechanisms of action, clinical aspects, structure–activity relationships, bioavailability and synergistic interactions with other drugs.

BackgroundBamboo is an important member of the family Poaceae and has many inflorescence and flowering features rarely observed in other plant groups. It retains an unusual form of perennialism by having a long vegetative phase that can extend up to 120 years, followed by flowering and death of the plants. In contrast to a large number of studies conducted on the annual, reference plants Arabidopsis thaliana and rice, molecular studies to characterize flowering pathways in perennial bamboo are lacking. Since photoperiod plays a crucial role in flower induction in most plants, important genes involved in this pathway have been studied in the field grown Bambusa tulda, which flowers after 40-50 years.ResultsWe identified several genes from B. tulda, including four related to the circadian clock [LATE ELONGATED HYPOCOTYL (LHY), TIMING OF CAB EXPRESSION1 (TOC1), ZEITLUPE (ZTL) and GIGANTEA (GI)], two circadian clock response integrators [CONSTANS A (COA), CONSTANS B (COB)] and four floral pathway integrators [FLOWERING LOCUS T1, 2, 3, 4 (FT1, 2, 3, 4)]. These genes were amplified from either gDNA and/or cDNA using degenerate as well as gene specific primers based on homologous sequences obtained from related monocot species. The sequence identity and phylogenetic comparisons revealed their close relationships to homologs identified in the temperate bamboo Phyllostachys edulis. While the four BtFT homologs were highly similar to each other, BtCOA possessed a full-length B-box domain that was truncated in BtCOB. Analysis of the spatial expression of these genes in selected flowering and non-flowering tissue stages indicated their possible involvement in flowering. The diurnal expression patterns of the clock genes were comparable to their homologs in rice, except for BtZTL. Among multiple BtCO and BtFT homologs, the diurnal pattern of only BtCOA and BtFT3, 4 were synchronized in the flower inductive tissue, but not in the non-flowering tissues.ConclusionThis study elucidates the photoperiodic regulation of bamboo homologs of important flowering genes. The finding also identifies copy number expansion and gene expression divergence of CO and FT in bamboo. Further studies are required to understand their functional role in bamboo flowering.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12864-018-4571-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

More than a half-century has passed since it was discovered that phytohormone cytokinin (CK) is essential to drive cytokinesis and proliferation in plant tissue culture. Thereafter, cytokinin has emerged as the primary regulator of the plant cell cycle and numerous developmental processes. Lately, a growing body of evidence suggests that cytokinin has a role in mitigating both abiotic and biotic stress. Cytokinin is essential to defend plants against excessive light exposure and a unique kind of abiotic stress generated by an altered photoperiod. Secondly, cytokinin also exhibits multi-stress resilience under changing environments. Furthermore, cytokinin homeostasis is also affected by several forms of stress. Therefore, the diverse roles of cytokinin in reaction to stress, as well as its interactions with other hormones, are discussed in detail. When it comes to agriculture, understanding the functioning processes of cytokinins under changing environmental conditions can assist in utilizing the phytohormone, to increase productivity. Through this review, we briefly describe the biological role of cytokinin in enhancing the performance of plants growth under abiotic challenges as well as the probable mechanisms underpinning cytokinin-induced stress tolerance. In addition, the article lays forth a strategy for using biotechnological tools to modify genes in the cytokinin pathway to engineer abiotic stress tolerance in plants. The information presented here will assist in better understanding the function of cytokinin in plants and their effective investigation in the cropping system.

An incredible array of natural products is produced by plants that serve several ecological functions, including protecting them from herbivores and microbes, attracting pollinators, and dispersing seeds. In addition to their obvious medical applications, natural products serve as flavoring agents, fragrances, and many other uses by humans.With the increasing demand for natural products and the development of various gene engineering systems, researchers are trying to modify the plant genome to increase the biosynthetic pathway of the compound of interest or blocking the pathway of unwanted compound synthesis. The clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/Cas9 has had widespread success in genome editing due to the system's high efficiency, ease of use, and accuracy which revolutionized the genome editing system in living organisms. This study highlights the method of the CRISPR/Cas system, its application in different organisms including microbes, algae, fungi, and also higher plants in natural product research, and its shortcomings and future prospects.

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Piper longum (family Piperaceae), commonly known as "long-pepper" or "Pippali" grows as a perennial shrub or as an herbaceous vine. It is native to the Indo-Malaya region and widely distributed in the tropical and subtropical world including the Indian subcontinent, Sri Lanka, Middle-East, and America. The fruits are mostly used as culinary spice and preservatives and are also a potent remedy in various traditional medicinal systems against bronchitis, cough, cold, snakebite, and scorpion-sting and are also used as a contraceptive. Various bioactive-phytochemicals including alkaloids, flavonoids, esters, and steroids were identified from the plant extracts and essential oils from the roots and fruits were reported as antimicrobial, antiparasitic, anthelminthic, mosquito-larvicidal, antiinflammatory, analgesic, antioxidant, anticancer, neuro-pharmacological, antihyperglycaemic, hepato-protective, antihyperlipidaemic, antiangiogenic, immunomodulatory, antiarthritic, antiulcer, antiasthmatic, cardioprotective, and anti-snake-venom agents. Many of its pharmacological properties were attributed to its antioxidative and antiinflammatory effects and its ability to modulate a number of signalling pathways and enzymes. This review comprehensively encompasses information on habit, distribution, ethnobotany, phytochemistry, and pharmacology of P. longum in relation to its medicinal importance and health benefits to validate the traditional claims supported by specific scientific experiments. In addition, it also discusses the safety and toxicity studies, application of green synthesis and nanotechnology as well as clinical trials performed with the plant also elucidating research gaps and future perspectives of its multifaceted uses.

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