Tuberculosis (TB) is a recurrent and progressive disease, with high mortality rates worldwide. The drug-resistance phenomenon of Mycobacterium tuberculosis is a major obstruction of allelopathy treatment. An adverse side effect of allelopathic treatment is that it causes serious health complications. The search for suitable alternatives of conventional regimens is needed, i.e., by considering medicinal plant secondary metabolites to explore anti-TB drugs, targeting the action site of M. tuberculosis. Nowadays, plant-derived secondary metabolites are widely known for their beneficial uses, i.e., as antioxidants, antimicrobial agents, and in the treatment of a wide range of chronic human diseases (e.g., tuberculosis), and are known to “thwart” disease virulence. In this regard, in silico studies can reveal the inhibitory potential of plant-derived secondary metabolites against Mycobacterium at the very early stage of infection. Computational approaches based on different algorithms could play a significant role in screening plant metabolites against disease virulence of tuberculosis for drug designing.

Plant flowering is antagonistically modulated by similar FLOWERING LOCUS T (FT) and TERMINAL FLOWER 1 (TFL1) proteins. In mango (Mangifera indica L.), flowering is induced by cold temperatures, unless the tree is juvenile or the adult tree had a high fruit load (HFL) in the summer. Here, we studied the effects of juvenility and fruit load on the expression of four MiFT/TFL1 genes cloned from the mango ‘Shelly’ cultivar. Ectopic expression of MiFT1 in Arabidopsis resulted in early flowering, whereas over-expression of MiFT2 and the two cloned MiTFL1 genes repressed flowering. Moreover, juvenility was positively correlated with higher transcript levels of MiFT2 and both MiTFL1s. In trees with a low fruit load, leaf MiFT1 expression increased in winter, whereas HFL delayed its upregulation. MiFT2 expression was upregulated in both leaves and buds under both fruit load conditions. Downregulation of both MITFL1s in buds was associated with a decrease in regional temperatures under both conditions; nevertheless, HFL delayed the decrease in their accumulation. Our results suggest that cold temperature has opposite effects on the expression of MiFT1 and the MiTFL1s, thereby inducing flowering, whereas HFL represses flowering by both suppressing MiFT1 upregulation and delaying MiTFL1s downregulation. The apparent flowering-inhibitory functions of MiFT2 are discussed.

Unlike animals, persistent dynamic environmental perturbations threaten plants, as they are sessile. Plants keep an inbuilt database of all epigenetic episodes during their lifetime. Present knowledge for exploiting information about how the gene network of plants contributes to epigenetic memory needs to be improved, and extensive in-depth studies are needed. Data from epigenetic memories imparts intelligent behaviour to plants, and these memories can be decoded further to investigate how these plants respond when the same abiotic stress recurs. The epigenetic phenomenon refers to gene expression patterns, including vital factors such as nucleic acids (small ribonucleic acids), histones modelling and methylation of DNA. These changes are cell cycle-associated events that may be transmitted to successive generations. Epigenetic memories due to abiotic stress are necessary for maintaining healthy ecophysiological behaviour of plants and impart the tendency to resist and adapt to challenging environmental conditions. These intelligent memories can be stored and interpreted to prepare for future challenges.