Stomata are microscopic pores found on the surfaces of leaves that act to control CO 2 uptake and water loss. By integrating information derived from endogenous signals with cues from the surrounding environment, the guard cells, which surround the pore, 'set' the stomatal aperture to suit the prevailing conditions. Much research has concentrated on understanding the rapid intracellular changes that result in immediate changes to the stomatal aperture. In this study, we look instead at how stomata acclimate to longer timescale variations in their environment. We show that the closure-inducing signals abscisic acid (ABA), increased CO 2 , decreased relative air humidity and darkness each access a unique gene network made up of clusters (or modules) of common cellular processes. However, within these networks some gene clusters are shared amongst all four stimuli. All stimuli modulate the expression of members of the PYR/PYL/RCAR family of ABA receptors. However, they are modulated differentially in a stimulus-specific manner. Of the six members of the PYR/PYL/RCAR family expressed in guard cells, PYL2 is sufficient for guard cell ABA-induced responses, whereas in the responses to CO 2 , PYL4 and PYL5 are essential. Overall, our work shows the importance of ABA as a central regulator and integrator of long-term changes in stomatal behaviour, including sensitivity, elicited by external signals. Understanding this architecture may aid in breeding crops with improved water and nutrient efficiency.

Plant productivity depends on optimal water-use efficiency and photosynthetic capacity balanced by stomatal conductance. Whether and how stomatal behavior contributes to salt sensitivity or tolerance is currently unknown. This work identifies guard cell-specific signaling networks exerted by a salt-sensitive and salt-tolerant plant under ionic and osmotic stress conditions accompanied with increasing NaCl loads.  We challenged soil grown Arabidopsis thaliana and Thellungiella salsuginea plants with shortand long-term salinity stress and monitored genome-wide gene expression and signals of guard cells that determine their function.  Arabidopsis plants suffered from both salt regimes and showed reduced stomatal conductance while Thellungiella displayed no obvious stress symptoms. The salt-dependent gene expression changes of guard cells supported the ability of the halophyte to maintain high potassium to sodium ratios and to attenuate the ABA signaling pathway which the glycophyte kept activated despite fading ABA levels.  Our study shows that salinity stress and even the different tolerance levels are manifested on a single cell level. Halophytic guard cells react less sensitive than glycophytic guard cells providing opportunities to manipulate stomatal behavior and improve plant productivity.

Schistosomiasis (bilharzia) is a neglected tropical disease caused by parasitic flatworms of the genus Schistosoma, with considerable morbidity in parts of the Middle East, South America, Southeast Asia, in sub-Saharan Africa, and particularly also in Europe. The WHO describes an increasing global health burden with more than 290 million people threatened by the disease and a potential to spread into regions with temperate climates like Corsica, France. The aim of our study was to investigate the influence of S. mansoni infection on colorectal carcinogenic signaling pathways in vivo and in vitro. S. mansoni infection, soluble egg antigens (SEA) and the Interleukin-4-inducing principle from S. mansoni eggs induce Wnt/β-catenin signaling and the protooncogene c-Jun as well as downstream factor Cyclin D1 and markers for DNA-damage, such as Parp1 and γH2a.x in enterocytes. The presence of these characteristic hallmarks of colorectal carcinogenesis was confirmed in colon biopsies from S. mansoni-infected patients demonstrating the clinical relevance of our findings. For the first time it was shown that S. mansoni SEA may be involved in the induction of colorectal carcinoma-associated signaling pathways.

Abstract. Multi-directional optical coherence tomography (MD-OCT) applies and extends the concept of angular compounding for speckle noise reduction to the area of OCT imaging. OCT images are acquired from a wide range of angles of view. Averaging of the rotated images therefore requires compensation of the parallax which is achieved by simple image registration for image reconstruction. Test measurements of a sample structure in a low and highly scattering environment show that the method improves the signal-to-noise ratio by a factor of 4 and hence reduces speckle noise significantly. Experimental results also show that the proposed averaging increases the performance of common edgedetection algorithms.

Date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) is able to grow and complete its life cycle while being rooted in highly saline soils. Which of the many well‐known salt‐tolerance strategies are combined to fine‐tune this remarkable resilience is unknown. The precise location, whether in the shoot or the root, where these strategies are employed remains uncertain, leaving us unaware of how the various known salt‐tolerance mechanisms are integrated to fine‐tune this remarkable resilience. To address this shortcoming, we exposed date palm to a salt stress dose equivalent to seawater for up to 4 weeks and applied integrative multi‐omics analyses followed by targeted metabolomics, hormone, and ion analyses. Integration of proteomic into transcriptomic data allowed a view beyond simple correlation, revealing a remarkably high degree of convergence between gene expression and protein abundance. This sheds a clear light on the acclimatization mechanisms employed, which depend on reprogramming of protein biosynthesis. For growth in highly saline habitats, date palm effectively combines various salt‐tolerance mechanisms found in both halophytes and glycophytes: “avoidance” by efficient sodium and chloride exclusion at the roots, and “acclimation” by osmotic adjustment, reactive oxygen species scavenging in leaves, and remodeling of the ribosome‐associated proteome in salt‐exposed root cells. Combined efficiently as in P. dactylifera L., these sets of mechanisms seem to explain the palm's excellent salt stress tolerance.