A series of stable and well‐dispersed random alloy nanoparticles of palladium and gold was synthesized by a template method using dendrimers. The synthesized nanoparticles were qualitatively and quantitatively characterized by UV‐Vis spectrophotometry (UV‐Vis), High‐resolution transmission electron spectroscopy (HR‐TEM), energy dispersed X‐ray spectroscopy (EDS) and inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP‐OES). Metal nanoparticles size (Pd55Au55/Dens‐OH ((2.21 ± 0.41) nm)) were significantly close to the calculated nanoparticles size (Pd55Au55/Dens‐OH (2.59 nm)). Catalytic reduction of methyl orange was performed as a model reaction in the presence of sodium borohydride. The kinetic investigation was monitored through a microplate reader. The obtained data were kinetically interpreted according to the Langmuir‐Hinshelwood approach. The catalytic process described an exothermic process, where the model compound physicochemical adsorption on the nanoparticles active surface site was found to be a non‐spontaneous process.

The impact of fungal diseases on crop production negatively reflects on sustainable food production and overall economic health. Ergosterol is the major sterol component in fungal membranes and regarded as a general elicitor or microbe-associated molecular pattern (MAMP) molecule. Although plant responses to ergosterol have been reported, the perception mechanism is still unknown. Here, Arabidopsis thaliana protein fractions were used to identify those differentially regulated following ergosterol treatment; additionally, they were subjected to affinity-based chromatography enrichment strategies to capture and categorize ergosterol-interacting candidate proteins using liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). Mature plants were treated with 250 nM ergosterol over a 24 h period, and plasma membrane-associated fractions were isolated. In addition, ergosterol was immobilized on two different affinity-based systems to capture interacting proteins/complexes. This resulted in the identification of defense-related proteins such as chitin elicitor receptor kinase (CERK), non-race specific disease resistance/harpin-induced (NDR1/HIN1)-like protein, Ras-related proteins, aquaporins, remorin protein, leucine-rich repeat (LRR)- receptor like kinases (RLKs), G-type lectin S-receptor-like serine/threonine-protein kinase (GsSRK), and glycosylphosphatidylinositol (GPI)-anchored protein. Furthermore, the results elucidated unknown signaling responses to this MAMP, including endocytosis, and other similarities to those previously reported for bacterial flagellin, lipopolysaccharides, and fungal chitin.