Romina Giacometti

National Scientific and Technical Research Council | conicet · INBA Instituto de Investigaciones en Biociencias Agrícolas y Ambientales

The southern green stink bug (Nezara viridula) is a serious invasive pest in United States and South America that decreases the quantity and quality of soybean seeds. Plants respond to insect attack recognizing cell injury and oral secretions, triggering mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPK) pathway and inducing defenses against herbivores. Our...

Synthesis of noble metal nanoparticles using natural products and living organisms has drawn a lot of interest owing to economic prospects and potential applicability in different fields. For this work we used the exudate of the soil fungus Macrophomina phaseolina for a low-cost method of green synthesis to obtain stable silver-silver chloride nano...

The stink bug Nezara viridula is one of the most threatening pests for agriculture in North and South America, and its oral secretion may be responsible for the damage it causes in soybean (Glycine max) crop. The high level of injury to seeds caused by pentatomids is related to their feeding behavior, morphology of mouth parts, and saliva, though i...

Background: Southern green stink bugs (Nezara viridula) invade field-grown soybean crops, where they feed on developing seeds and inject phytotoxic saliva that causes yield reduction. Although leaf responses to herbivory are well studied, no information is available about the regulation of defenses in seeds. Results: This study demonstrated that...

Nano-enabled Agrochemicals in Agriculture presents a targeted overview of the safe implementation of nanotechnologies within horticultural and agricultural settings with the purpose of achieving enhanced production while maintaining ecological integrity. The growing global request for agricultural crops/products requires high standards of quality a...

The aim of this chapter is to offer a wide scope of description of the biosynthetic or eco-friendly routes for obtaining nanoparticles as well as exploring the possibilities of their application in the agroindustrial sector. Nanotechnological approaches are gaining tremendous impetus in this field, especially in helping to cope with biotic stresses...

The development of environmentally friendly new procedures for the synthesis of metallic nanoparticles is one of the main goals of nanotechnology. Proteins and enzymes from plants, filamentous fungi, yeast, and bacteria to produce nanoparticles are both valuable and viable alternatives to conventional synthesis of nanomaterials due to their high ef...

Root colonization with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) improves plant tolerance against soil-borne pathogens. The purpose of the present study was to explore the efficacy of the AMF Rhizophagus intraradices (N.C. Schenck & G.S. Sm.) as a biocontrol agent against Fusarium pseudograminearum (O’Donnell and Aoki) in wheat plants grown under greenhou...

As a consequence of global change, distribution of species and interaction between organisms are altered. Organisms share their environment with hundreds of species, some of them displaying pathogenic, neutral, or benefic behavior. Due to the adapting ability of organisms to live in diverse natural scenarios, they present a wide array of responses...

Arsenic (As) is a non-essential element, and its uptake and accumulation in plant tissues can affect metabolism, causing physiological disorders, even death. However, some microorganisms have the ability to overcome those unfavorable effects and to improve plant performance under As stress environments. Among them, arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF...

The presence of a single surface plasmon resonance peak at 415 nm in the scanned UV-vis region suggests the nanoparticles have spherical shape, which was further confirmed by electron microscopy. A drop of Ag/AgCl-NPs sample solution synthesized by Macrophomina phaseolina cell-free filtrate was deposited onto a silicon wafer to analyze the morpholo...

Green synthesis of metallic nanoparticles using biological sources has attracted much attention due to its economic aspects and potential applicability in a wide range of fields. The present study demonstrates an eco-friendly and low-cost method of biosynthesis of stable silver chloride nanoparticles (AgCl-NPs) using cell-free filtrate of phytopath...

5DBQ: Crystal Structure of Insect Thioredoxin at 1.95 Angstroms https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Structure/mmdb/mmdbsrv.cgi?uid=142250&dps=1

Isolation and characterization of a thioredoxin from Anticarsia gemmatalis cDNA https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/983174930/

Industrialisation has elevated atmospheric levels of CO2 from original 280 ppm to current levels at 400 ppm, which is estimated to double by 2050. Although high atmospheric CO2 levels affect insect interactions with host plants, the impact of global change on plant defences in response to insect attack is not completely understood. Recent studies h...

Uptake of Arsenic (As) in plant tissues can affect metabolism, causing physiological disorders, even death. As toxicity, but also pathogen infections trigger a generalised stress response called oxidative stress; however knowledge on the response of soybean (Glycine max L.) under multiple stressors is limited so far. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (A...

Soybean (Glycine max), the most important legume crop in South and North America, is attacked by different insect pests that decrease crop yield. Plants have evolved sophisticated signaling networks that allow them to perceive and to cope with leaf herbivory. Herbivore attack alters levels of defensive phytohormones jasmonic acid (JA), salicylic ac...

The phosphoinositide-dependent protein kinase 1, PDK1, is a master kinase that phosphorylates the activation loop of up to 23 AGC kinases. S. cerevisiae has three PDK1 orthologues, Pkh1-3, which also phosphorylate AGC kinases, e.g. Ypk, Tpk, Pkc1 and Sch9. Pkh1 and 2 are redundant proteins involved in multiple essential cellular functions, includin...

In the pathogen Candida albicans protein kinase A (PKA) catalytic subunit is encoded by two genes TPK1 and TPK2 and the regulatory subunit by one gene, BCY1. PKA mediates several cellular processes such as cell cycle regulation and the yeast to hyphae transition, a key factor for C. albicans virulence. The catalytic isoforms Tpk1p and Tpk2p share r...

Candida albicans undergoes a reversible morphological transition from single yeast cells to pseudohyphal and hyphal filaments. In this organism, cAMP-dependent protein kinase (PKA), coded by two catalytic subunits (TPK1 and TPK2) and one regulatory subunit (BCY1), mediates basic cellular processes, such as the yeast-to-hypha transition and cell cyc...

Candida albicans cAMP-dependent protein kinase (PKA) is coded by two catalytic subunits (TPK1 and TPK2) and one regulatory subunit (BCY1). In this organism the cAMP/PKA signalling pathway mediates basic cellular processes, such as the yeast-to-hyphae transition and cell cycle regulation. In the present study, we investigated the role of C. albicans...

The transcript levels of Candida albicans TPK1 and TPK2 genes, encoding PKA catalytic subunits, as well as phosphotransferase activity, were measured in the parental strain CAI4 and in homozygous tpk1Delta and tpk2Delta mutants during vegetative growth and during yeast-to-mycelial transition in N-acetylglucosamine liquid inducing medium at 37 degre...

We investigated expression, functionality and subcellular localization of C. albicans Bcy1p, the PKA regulatory subunit, in mutant strains having one BCY1 allele fused to a green fluorescent protein (GFP). DE-52 column chromatography of soluble extracts of yeast cells from strains bearing one BCY1 allele (fused or not to GFP) showed co-elution of B...