Article examining the mechanism of Glutathione synthetase, an enzyme that belongs to the glutathione synthetase ATP-binding domain-like superfamily. A variety of structural alignment methods were applied and four highly conserved residues of human glutathione synthetase (Glu-144, Asn-146, Lys-305, and Lys-364) were identified in the binding site. The function of these was studied by experimental and computational site-directed mutagenesis.

This article develops and validates a sequential protocol for quantifying reserve and structural carbohydrates in soybean seed. It was successfully applied to eight soybean genotypes harvested from two locations, and the resulting correlations of carbohydrate and oil or protein are presented. This methodology has the potential not only to guide soybean cultivar optimization processes but also to be expanded to other crops with only slight modifications.

This editorial discusses sixteen manuscripts which address the physiology and molecular biology of plant-hemipteran interactions at different levels.

Article explores the question of whether animals with switched phenotypes during early development are unable to return to a normal range of adult phenotypes, or whether they do not experience the specific environmental conditions necessary for them to switch back to the normal range of adult phenotypes.

Article discusses how the global sequencing of microRNA (miRNA; miR) and integration to downstream mRNA expression profiles in early life stages (ELS) of fish following exposure to crude oil determined consistently dysregulated miRNAs regardless of the oil source or fish species. The overlay of differentially expressed miRNAs and mRNAs into in silico software determined that the key roles of these miRNAs were predicted to be involved in cardiovascular, neurological and visually-mediated pathways.

This article is a review examining the characteristics that make an animal model attractive for developmental research and explores opportunities presented by the embryo to adult continuum of alternative bird models including quail, ratites, songbirds, birds of prey, and corvids.

Authors of the article discuss that to uncover genes and pathways involved in the differential clinical manifestations of COVID-19 they developed a novel gene co-expression network-based pipeline that uses gene expression obtained from different SARS-CoV-2 infected human tissues. Their study shines a new light on genes and their networks (modules) that drive the progression of COVID-19 from moderate to extremely severe condition, which could aid development of new therapeutics to combat COVID-19.

Article states that mass-spectrometry-based screening of lipid extracts of wounded and unwounded leaves from a collection of 364 Arabidopsis thaliana T-DNA insertion lines produced lipid profiles that were scored on the number and significance of their differences from the leaf lipid profiles of wild-type plants. The analysis identified Salk_109175C, which displayed alterations in leaf chloroplast glycerolipid composition, including a decreased ratio between two monogalactosyldiacylglycerol (MGDG) molecular species, MGDG(18:3/16:3) and MGDG(18:3/18:3).

Article asserts that glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) are linear, negatively charged polysaccharides composed of repeating disaccharide units of uronic acid and amino sugars. To investigate the relationship between GAGs and recurrent urinary tract infection (rUTI), the authors profiled urinary GAGs in a controlled cohort of postmenopausal women.

Article describes how silicon can be important for the growth, functioning, and stoichiometric regulation of nutrients for high-Si-accumulating bamboo. The authors demonstrated that silicon supply can decrease the ratio of C:Si in bamboo leaves and increase the ratio of N:P without altering nutrient status or the N:P ratio of tree spalings.