Environmental stresses adversely affect crop growth and yield, resulting in major losses to plants. These stresses occur simultaneously in nature, and we therefore conducted a meta-analysis in this study to identify differential and shared genes, pathways, and transcriptomic mechanisms involved in Arabidopsis response to biotic and abiotic stresses. The results showed a total of 436/21 significant up-/downregulated differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in response to biotic stresses, while 476 and 71 significant DEGs were respectively up- and downregulated in response to abiotic stresses in Arabidopsis thaliana. In addition, 21 DEGs (2.09%) were commonly regulated in response to biotic and abiotic stresses. Except for WRKY45 and ATXTH22, which were respectively up-/down- and down-/upregulated in response to biotic and abiotic stresses, other common DEGs were upregulated in response to all biotic and abiotic treatments. Moreover, the transcription factors (TFs) bHLH, MYB, and WRKY were the common TFs in response to biotic and abiotic stresses. In addition, ath-miR414 and ath-miR5658 were identified to be commonly expressed in response to both biotic and abiotic stresses. The identified common genes and pathways during biotic and abiotic stresses may provide potential candidate targets for the development of stress resistance breeding programs and for the genetic manipulation of crop plants.

Following a pathogen attack, plants defend themselves using multiple defense mechanisms to prevent infections. We used a meta-analysis and systems-biology analysis to search for general molecular plant defense responses from transcriptomic data reported from different pathogen attacks in Arabidopsis thaliana. Data from seven studies were subjected to meta-analysis, which revealed a total of 3694 differentially expressed genes (DEGs), where both healthy and infected plants were considered. Gene Ontology and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes pathway enrichment analysis further suggested that the DEGs were involved in several biosynthetic metabolic pathways, including those responsible for the biosynthesis of secondary metabolites and pathways central to photosynthesis and plant–pathogen interactions. Using network analysis, we highlight the importance of WRKY40, WRKY46 and STZ, and suggest that they serve as major points in protein–protein interactions. This is especially true regarding networks of composite-metabolic responses by pathogens. In summary, this research provides a new approach that illuminates how different mechanisms of transcriptome responses can be activated in plants under pathogen infection and indicates that common genes vary in their ability to regulate plant responses to the pathogens studied herein.

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Research on natural compounds provides new alternatives for effective and sustainable control of plant viral pathogens. Herein, we prepared and investigated the in vitro antiviral activity of 60 plant species from 22 families. The hydroethanolic extracts of Rhus coriaria, Chenopodium quinoa and Ailanthus altissima have strong inhibitions on Tobacco Mosaic Virus (TMV) infection. Hydroethanolic extract of C. quinoa with half-maximal Effective Concentration (EC 50 ) value of 1.64 mg mL -1 exhibited the highest inhibitory effect against TMV. The extracts of R. coriaria and A. altissima with EC 50 values of 2.82 and 4.42 mg mL -1 , being compared with C. quinoa, showed an anti-TMV activity at higher concentrations, respectively. The systemic assay indicated that all of the three extracts reduced the symptoms and negative effects of TMV on tobacco plants. The chemical analysis of C. quinoa extract demonstrated a rich profile of saponins and anthocyanins, while A. altissima and R. coriaria extracts were rich in phenolic compounds. These results displayed that C. quinoa, R. coriaria, and A. altissima extracts had significant antiviral activity, and could be used as suitable sources for discovering new antiviral agents.