The role of rhizosphere microbial communities in the degradation of hydrocarbons remains poorly understood and is a field of active study. We used high throughput sequencing to explore the rhizosphere microbial diversity in the alfalfa and barley planted oil contaminated soil samples. The analysis of 16s rRNA sequences showed Proteobacteria to be the most enriched (45.9%) followed by Bacteriodetes (21.4%) and Actinobacteria (10.4%) phyla. The results also indicated differences in the microbial diversity among the oil contaminated planted soil samples. The oil contaminated planted soil samples showed a higher richness in the microbial flora when compared to that of untreated samples, as indicated by the Chao1 indices. However, the trend was different for the diversity measure, where oil contaminated barley planted soil samples showed slightly lower diversity indices. While the clustering of soil samples grouped the oil contaminated samples within and across the plant types, the clean sandy soil samples formed a separate group. The oil contaminated rhizosphere soil showed an enrichment of known oil-degrading genera, such as Alcanivorax and Aequorivita, later being specifically enriched in the contaminated soil samples planted with barley. Overall, we found a few well known oil-degrading bacterial groups to be enriched in the oil contaminated planted soil samples compared to the untreated samples. Further, phyla such as Thermi and Gemmatimonadetes showed an enrichment in the oil contaminated soil samples, indicating their potential role in hydrocarbon degradation. The findings of the current study will be useful in understanding the rhizosphere microflora responsible for oil degradation and thus can help in designing appropriate phytoremediation strategies for oil contaminated lands.

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Plant virus diseases are widespread in Kuwait and cause significant economic losses in many crops. Four plant families, including Cucurbitaceae (cucumber, squash, melon, zucchini), Solanaceae (tomato, potato, pepper, eggplant), Liliaceae (onion) and Leguminosaea (bean) were surveyed for viruses by ELISA from December 2007 through May 2008. The survey was conducted on six farms located in the two main production areas, Wafra and Abdally agricultural districts. Each farm was visited four times during the production season. Eighteen plant viruses were detected, including Cucumber mosaic virus, Garlic common latent virus, Iris yellow spot virus, Onion yellow dwarf virus, Melon necrotic spot virus, Papaya ringspot virus, Pepino mosaic virus, Pepper mild mottle virus, Potato moptop virus, Potato virus M, Potato virus X, Potato virus Y, Squash mosaic virus, Tomato mosaic virus, Tomato spotted wilt virus, Tomato yellow leaf curl virus, Watermelon mosaic virus, and Zucchini yellow mosaic virus. Virus incidence was close to 100% on some crops, including cucurbit and onions and double or triple infections were common. Several important viruses were not found, including Potato virus A, Potato virus S, Potato leafroll virus, and Potato virus V.

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Developments in genetic engineering technology have led to an increase in number of food products that contain genetically engineered crops in the global market. However, due to lack of scientific studies, the presence of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in the Kuwaiti food market is currently ambiguous. Foods both for human and animal consumption are being imported from countries that are known to produce GM food. Therefore, an attempt has been made to screen foods sold in the Kuwaiti market to detect GMOs in the food. For this purpose, samples collected from various markets in Kuwait have been screened by SYBR green-based real time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) method. Further confirmation and GMO quantification was performed by TaqMan-based RT-PCR. Results indicated that a significant number of food commodities sold in Kuwait were tested positive for the presence of GMO. Interestingly, certain processed foods were tested positive for more than one transgenic events showing complex nature of GMOs in food samples. Results of this study clearly indicate the need for well-defined legislations and regulations on the marketing of approved GM food and its labeling to protect consumer's rights.