Teenage pregnancy was associated with a significantly higher risk of PIH, PET, eclampsia, premature onset of labor, fetal deaths and premature delivery. Increased neonatal morbidity and mortality were also seen in babies delivered to teenage mothers. Younger teenager group (17 years) was most vulnerable to adverse obstetric and neonatal outcomes.

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Key message We describe here the recent developments about the involvement of diverse stress-related proteins in sensing, signaling, and defending the cells in plants in response to drought or/and heat stress. Abstract In the current era of global climate drift, plant growth and productivity are often limited by various environmental stresses, especially drought and heat. Adaptation to abiotic stress is a multigenic process involving maintenance of homeostasis for proper survival under adverse environment. It has been widely observed that a series of proteins respond to heat and drought conditions at both transcriptional and translational levels. The proteins are involved in various signaling events, act as key transcriptional activators and saviors of plants under extreme environments. A detailed insight about the functional aspects of diverse stress-responsive proteins may assist in unraveling various stress resilience mechanisms in plants. Furthermore, by identifying the metabolic proteins associated with drought and heat tolerance, tolerant varieties can be produced through transgenic/recombinant technologies. A large number of regulatory and functional stress-associated proteins are reported to participate in response to heat and drought stresses, such as protein kinases, phosphatases, transcription factors, and late embryogenesis abundant proteins, dehydrins, osmotins, and heat shock proteins, which may be similar or unique to stress treatments. Few studies have revealed that cellular response to combined drought and heat stresses is distinctive, compared to their individual treatments. In this review, we would mainly focus on the new developments about various stress sensors and receptors, transcription factors, chaperones, and stress-associated proteins involved in drought or/ and heat stresses, and their possible role in augmenting stress tolerance in crops.

Sesame is an important ancient oilseed crop of high medicinal value. In the present study, 37 characters including both quantitative and qualitative traits of sixty genotypes were characterized following IPGRI morphological descriptors for sesame. Multivariate analysis was computed to distinguish the varieties into different groups. Though thirty six microsatellite markers including genomic and Est-SSR markers were initially selected, but, finally, the accessions were genotyped by eight polymorphic primers. Altogether, 27 alleles were detected among the 60 genotypes, with an average of 3.37 alleles per locus. The number of alleles ranged from 2 to 6 alleles. From data of microsatellite markers, dissimilarity coefficients between varieties were computed following Jaccard's coefficient method. Principal co-ordinate analysis was used to represent the varieties in bi-directional space. Dendrogram was constructed using NJ method based on dissimilarity matrix. Cluster analysis based on morphological and molecular marker classified sesame genotypes into two major groups. Mantel test showed an insignificant correlation between phenotypic and molecular marker information. The genotypes belonging to the same geographical area did not always occupy the same cluster. The results confirmed that both genetic and phenotypic diversity in a combined way could efficiently evaluate the variation present in different sesame accessions in any breeding program.

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The world faces a grave situation of nutrient deficiency as a consequence of increased uptake of calorie-rich food that threaten nutritional security. More than half the world’s population is affected by different forms of malnutrition. Unhealthy diets associated with poor nutrition carry a significant risk of developing non-communicable diseases, leading to a high mortality rate. Although considerable efforts have been made in agriculture to increase nutrient content in cereals, the successes are insufficient. The number of people affected by different forms of malnutrition has not decreased much in the recent past. While legumes are an integral part of the food system and widely grown in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, only limited efforts have been made to increase their nutrient content in these regions. Genetic variation for a majority of nutritional traits that ensure nutritional security in adverse conditions exists in the germplasm pool of legume crops. This diversity can be utilized by selective breeding for increased nutrients in seeds. The targeted identification of precise factors related to nutritional traits and their utilization in a breeding program can help mitigate malnutrition. The principal objective of this review is to present the molecular mechanisms of nutrient acquisition, transport and metabolism to support a biofortification strategy in legume crops to contribute to addressing malnutrition.

Present study is the first to explore physiological, biochemical and molecular changes in the medicinal plant Artemisia annua under arsenic (As) stress. A. annua grown hydroponically in a nutrient solution was spiked with increasing doses of As (0, 1,500, 3,000 and 4,500 μg l(-1)) for 7 days. Plants accumulated As in a dose dependent manner with bioconcentration factor 13.4 and translocation factor 0.97. While a similar trend of As accumulation was observed under soil culture experiments, the transfer factor went up to 2.1, depicting high efficiency of As translocation from roots to shoots by A. annua. Plants raised in 0-3,000 μg l(-1) As containing nutrient solution registered increase in root length, biomass, and carotenoid contents without any visual toxicity symptoms. A dose dependent increase in the activities of enzymes such as superoxide dismutase, ascorbate peroxidase, glutathione reductase and guaiacol peroxidase followed by a gradual decline at higher concentrations suggested their role in alleviating oxidative stress. Significant increase in the levels of thiols, GSH, and pcs gene transcript up to 3,000 μg l(-1) As attested their roles in As detoxification. Enhanced artemisinin production (an antimalarial compound) under As stress and upregulation of the transcripts (measured by RT-PCR) of the genes HMGR, FDS, ADS, and CYP71AV1 involved in artemisinin biosynthesis reaffirmed induction of artemisinin biosynthesis in A. annua under As stress. The results of the present study vividly suggested that A. annua has considerable As tolerance, and thus can be successfully cultivated in As contaminated fields.

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