Key message Knocking down GW2 enhances grain size by regulating genes encoding the synthesis of cytokinin, gibberellin, starch and cell wall. Abstract Raising crop yield is a priority task in the light of the continuing growth of the world's population and the inexorable loss of arable land to urbanization. Here, the RNAi approach was taken to reduce the abundance of Grain Weight 2 (GW2) transcript in the durum wheat cultivar Svevo. The effect of the knockdown was to increase the grains' starch content by 10-40%, their width by 4-13% and their surface area by 3-5%. Transcriptomic profiling, based on a quantitative real-time PCR platform, revealed that the transcript abundance of genes encoding both cytokinin dehydrogenase 1 and the large subunit of ADP-glucose pyrophosphorylase was markedly increased in the transgenic lines, whereas that of the genes encoding cytokinin dehydrogenase 2 and gibberellin 3-oxidase was reduced. A proteomic analysis of the non-storage fraction extracted from mature grains detected that eleven proteins were differentially represented in the transgenic compared to wild-type grain: some of these were involved, or at least potentially involved, in cell wall development, suggesting a role of GW2 in the regulation of cell division in the wheat grain.

Climate change and the need to feed an increasing population undermines food production and safety, representing the reasons behind the development of a new agriculture that is much more sustainable, productive and accessible worldwide. Genome editing and, in particular, clustered regularly interspaced palindromic repeats/CRISPR-associated protein (CRISPR/Cas) tools will play a major role in plant breeding to address these concerns. CRISPR/Cas includes a series of genome editing tools relying on the recognition and cleavage of target DNA/RNA sequences to introduce specific mutations.

Human papillomavirus (HPV) still represents an important threat to health worldwide. Better therapy in terms of further improvement of outcomes and attenuation of related side-effects is desirable. The pharmaceutical industry has always targeted natural substances—phytochemicals in particular—to identify lead compounds to be clinically validated and industrially produced as antiviral and anticancer drugs. In the field of HPV, numerous naturally occurring bioactives and dietary phytochemicals have been investigated as potentially valuable in vitro and in vivo. Interference with several pathways and improvement of the efficacy of chemotherapeutic agents have been demonstrated. Notably, some clinical trials have been conducted. Despite being endowed with general safety, these natural substances are in urgent need of further assessment to foresee their clinical exploitation. This review summarizes the basic research efforts conducted so far in the study of anti-HPV properties of bio-actives with insights into their mechanisms of action and highlights the variety of their natural origin in order to provide comprehensive mapping throughout the different sources. The clinical studies available are reported, as well, to highlight the need of uniformity and consistency of studies in the future to select those natural compounds that may be suited to clinical application.