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Publications (42)
Salt stress tolerance is an important quality in breeding cultivated plants to reduce crop loss. In this work, the tolerance to sodium chloride (NaCl) salinity of two Capsicum genotypes was evaluated: C. annuum (Blanco and Simojovel chili) and C. frutescens (Siete Caldos chili) from the state of Chiapas, Mexico. Seedlings were hydroponically mainta...
Plant glutamate receptors (GLRs) are integral membrane proteins that function as non-selective cation channels, involved in the regulation of developmental events crucial in plants. Knowledge of these proteins is restricted to a few species and their true agonists are still unknown in plants. Using tomato SlGLRs, a search was performed in the peppe...
Habanero pepper (Capsicum chinense Jacq.) is a crop of economic relevance in the Peninsula of Yucatan. Its fruits
have a high level of capsaicinoids compared to peppers grown in other regions of the world, which gives them
industrial importance. Soil is an important factor that affects pepper development, nutritional quality, and capsaicinoid
conte...
Capsaicinoids are responsible for the pungency in Capsicum species. These are synthesized by the
Capsaicin synthase (CS) encoded by the AT3 gene, which catalyzes the transference of an acyl moiety
from a branched-chain fatty acid-CoA ester to the vanillylamine to produce capsaicinoids. Some AT3
gene copies have been identified on the Capsicum genom...
Proline (Pro) is a low-molecular-weight cyclic amino acid that plays an important role as a source of energy and reducing power and as a source of carbon and nitrogen compounds for plant development. In most plant species, Pro is considered a stress marker. It is also a common compatible solute and is used cumulatively by plants under osmotic stres...
A review of the gene expression relating to capsaicinoid biosynthesis was carried out, in different species and varieties, within the Capsicum genus. The results were obtained using different molecular approaches with a variety of species of Capsicum genus (mainly C. frutescens L., C. chinense Jacq. and C. annuum L.). The analysis of these results...
NRT2 family of nitrate transporters normally require a partner protein, NAR2 (nitrate assimilation related protein), to transport nitrate to a high-affinity (high affinity nitrate transport system, HATS), although its role is still not well understood. In this study, the CcNRT2.1 and CcNAR2 cDNAs from of Capsicum chinense were cloned and characteri...
The characteristics of the soil in the Peninsula of Yucatán confer unique organoleptic properties to the habanero pepper ( Capsicum chinense Jacq.), and thus this entity possesses the denomination of origin of the species, making these chilis the most coveted, nationally and internationally. However, the extreme microtopographic variation distingui...
Water stress is the main factor responsible for decreased productivity, which affects the growth and development of crops. Plants respond to stress by accumulating compatible solutes, which have a key role in osmotic adjustment, thereby resulting in osmoprotection of the plants. The loss of water can increase the concentration of compatible osmolyt...
Aluminum (Al) is the most abundant metal in the earth’s crust, but its availability depends on soil pH. Despite this abundance, Al is not considered an essential element and so far no experimental evidence has been put forward for a biological role. In plants and other organisms, Al can have a beneficial or toxic effect, depending on factors such a...
High-affinity K⁺ (HAK) transporters are encoded by a large family of genes and are ubiquitous in the plant kingdom. These HAK-type transporters participate in low- and high-affinity potassium (K⁺) uptake and are crucial for the maintenance of K⁺ homeostasis under hostile conditions. In this study, the full-length cDNA of CcHAK1 gene was isolated fr...
In this work, we analysed the natural variation in mechanisms for protection against salt stress in pepper varieties (Capsicum chinense Jacq. cv. Rex, Chichen-Itza and Naranja and Capsicum annuum L. cv. Padron), considering primary root growth and viability of the post-stressed seedlings. NaCl-induced K⁺ and H⁺ efflux in roots was also studied by i...
Despite its economic relevance, little is known about salt tolerance mechanisms in pepper plants. To address this question, we compared differences in responses to NaCl in two Capsicum chinense varieties: Rex (tolerant) and Chichen-Itza (sensitive). Under salt stress (150 mM NaCl over 7 days) roots of Rex variety accumulated 50 times more compatibl...
Habanero pepper (Capsicum chinense Jacq.) is one of the most pungent cultivars of the genus Capsicum. We studied the effects of water deficit on capsaicinoids (CAPs, acid amides derived from phenylalanine and valine or leucine) accumulation. It comprises their synthesis and degradation through the determination of not only capsaicinoid content, but...
Amino acids, a major fraction of the low-molecular-weight organic nitrogen in soil, act as signaling molecules that indicate the presence of nutrient-rich patches to the roots. To characterize the effects of amino acids on root growth, we used seedlings of habanero pepper (Capsicum chinense), one of the most widely cultivated annual spice crops in...
Plants are sessile and are exposed to many environmental factors and are therefore under stress. In soils used for agriculture, salinity is a major abiotic factor that affects the growth, yield and quality of crops worldwide, mainly by the accumulation of Na+ in plant tissues and resulting loss of water. Crop peppers of the genus Capsicum have a hi...
Coffee propagation is performed by seeding. However, germination in coffee seed is slow and uneven.
Indeed, the production of plants in field is affected by environmental factors, which retards the
germination rates and, in consequence, the number of plants obtained. Plant tissue culture provides the
possibility of applying different growing condit...
The effects of nitrate (NO₃⁻) on the root system are complex and depend on several factors, such as the concentration available to the plant, endogenous nitrogen status and the sensitivity of the species. Though these effects have been widely documented on Arabidopsis and cereals, no reports are available in the Capsicum genus. In this paper, we ha...
Potassium (K +) is an essential nutrient and the most abundant cation in plant cells. Plants have a wide variety of transport systems for K + acquisition that catalyze K + uptake across a wide spectrum of external K + concentrations and mediate K + movement within the plant, as well as its release into the environment. The KUP/HAK/KT transporter fa...
The pungency of chili peppers is conferred by compounds called capsaicinoids that are produced only in the fruits of the Capsicum genus. Accumulation of capsaicinoids in these fruits may be affected by environmental conditions such as water and nutrient stresses, although these effects may vary even among genotypes within a species. The Habanero pe...
Capsaicinoids, the chemical compounds that confer the pungency trait to peppers, are accumulated at different levels in all species of the genus Capsicum. There is much evidence suggesting that the synthesis of capsaicinoids occurs in the placenta interlocular septum of pepper fruits; however, the exact localization of the capsaicinoids biosynthesi...
The high aluminum content in soils - in its toxic formcauses
agriculture losses. In the last years, studies of possible
mechanisms in plants treated with this metal have been initiated.
Although most of the studies have been made considering
mechanisms of aluminum exclusion, our understanding in the
symplastic detoxification or internal detoxificat...
The ER fraction from red beet taproot was purified on sucrose gradient and giant liposomes, suitable for patch clamping, were formed by dehydration-rehydration of the lipid film. Single-channel recordings on excised and attached patches revealed a large conductance (165 pS) cation (P(Cl-)/P(K+) < 0.03) channel with equal conductance and relative pe...
Habanero pepper (Capsicum chinense Jacq.) is a very important crop in Mexico and demand for it is increasing in national and international markets. The habanero pepper produced on the Yucatan Peninsula is considered of superior quality to that grown in the rest of the world as a result of its shelf life and pungency. Despite its importance, little...
We have previously reported that Catharanthus roseus transformed roots contain at least two phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate-phospholipase C (PLC) activities, one soluble and the other membrane associated. Detergent, divalent cations, and neomycin differentially regulate these activities and pure protein is required for a greater understanding...
Coffee (Coffea arabica L.) is of economic importance worldwide. Its growth in organic-rich acidic soils is influenced by aluminium such that coffee yield may be impaired. Herein we have used the Al-sensitive C. arabica suspension cell line L2 to analyse the effect of two different Al species on the phosphoinositide signal transduction pathway. Our...
Dynamics and distribution of K, Ca, Mg, P, and Na were studied in leaves of three cultivars of habanero pepper (Capsicum chinense Jacq.) at the time of transplanting and 8 and 14 weeks afterward. Most nutrients analyzed were mobilized from younger to mature leaves, except for P, which occurred in the opposite direction, probably due to its role in...
Voltage-dependent activation of slow vacuolar (SV) channels has been studied on isolated patches from red beet (Beta vulgaris L.) vacuoles. Isoosmotic variation of vacuolar K(+) from 10 to 400 mM in Ca(2+)-free solutions at the vacuolar side shifted the SV channel activation threshold to more positive voltages. The effect of K(+) could be mimicked...
The non-selective slow vacuolar (SV) channel can dominate tonoplast conductance, making it necessary to tightly control its activity. Applying the patch-clamp technique to vacuoles from sugar beet (Beta vulgaris L.) taproots we studied the effect of divalent cations on the vacuolar side of the SV channel. Our results show that the SV channel has tw...
The effect of aluminium (Al) on phosphoinositide-specific phospholipase C (PLC) and lipid kinase activities was examined in a cellular suspension of coffee. Two main effects were seen when cells were treated with AlCl3. In periods as short as 1 minute, Al-exposed cells increased the activity of PLC and IP3 formation up to two fold. Over longer peri...
An aluminium (Al)-tolerant cell line (LAMt) of coffee (Coffea arabica L.) was obtained from a cell suspension culture and biochemically and molecularly characterized in an MS medium at half ionic strength and low pH. LAMt grew 30% more than the control line (susceptible to Al) in the presence of different concentrations of Al, showed a lower free A...
At resting cytosolic Ca(2)(+), passive K(+) conductance of a higher plant tonoplast is likely dominated by fast vacuolar (FV) channels. This patch-clamp study describes K(+)-sensing behavior of FV channels in Beta vulgaris taproot vacuoles. Variation of K(+) between 10 and 400 mM had little effect on the FV channel conductance, but a pronounced one...
In higher plants the vacuolar K+‐selective (VK) channel was identified solely in guard cells. This patch‐clamp study describes a 40 pS homologue of the VK
channel in Beta vulgaris taproot vacuoles. This voltage‐independent channel is activated by submicromolar Ca2+, and is ideally selective for K+ over Cl– and Na+.
Aluminum (Al) is the most abundant metal in the earth's crust and occurs in a number of different forms in the soil. Al toxicity is a global problem that limits crop productivity in acid soils. Coffee is a plant which grows in soils with a high organic matter content, and Al is available in these soils because they are acidic. In the present work,...
Coffee (Coffea arabica) plants are usually grown in soils containing high levels of organic materials. Under these conditions, aluminum (Al) is toxic because of the acidic nature of the soils. Al is the most abundant metal found in the earth's crust and occurs in a number of different forms in soil. In acid soils, Al toxicity is a global problem th...
This paper summarizes the scientific contribution of Cuba to the development of technologies for safe, long-term preservation of plant germplasm of tropical origin. Cryopreservation is the storage at ultra-low temperatures, preferably liquid nitrogen (- 196°C). Currently, this is the only feasible method for the preservation of biological material...
