Heat Shock Proteins: A Review of the Molecular Chaperones for Plant Immunity chaperones;heat shock proteins;plant immunity; As sessile organisms, plants are exposed to persistently changing stresses and have to be able to interpret and respond to them. The stresses, drought, salinity, chemicals, cold and hot temperatures, and various pathogen attacks have interconnected effects on plants, resulting in the disruption of protein homeostasis. Maintenance of proteins in their functional native conformations and preventing aggregation of non-native proteins are important for cell survival under stress. Heat shock proteins (HSPs) functioning as molecular chaperones are the key components responsible for protein folding, assembly, translocation, and degradation under stress conditions and in many normal cellular processes. Plants respond to pathogen invasion using two different innate immune responses mediated by pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) or resistance (R) proteins. HSPs play an indispensable role as molecular chaperones in the quality control of plasma membrane-resident PRRs and intracellular R proteins against potential invaders. Here, we specifically discuss the functional involvement of cytosolic and endoplasmic reticulum (ER) HSPs/chaperones in plant immunity to obtain an integrated understanding of the immune responses in plant cells.

The viable community of microorganisms in the rhizosphere significantly impacts the physiological development and vitality of plants. The assembly and functional capacity of the rhizosphere microbiome are greatly influenced by various factors within the rhizosphere. The primary factors are the host plant genotype, developmental stage and status, soil properties, and resident microbiota. These factors drive the composition, dynamics, and activity of the rhizosphere microbiome. This review addresses the intricate interplay between these factors and how it facilitates the recruitment of specific microbes by the host plant to support plant growth and resilience under stress. This review also explores current methods for engineering and manipulating the rhizosphere microbiome, including host plant-mediated manipulation, soil-related methods, and microbe-mediated methods. Advanced techniques to harness the plant's ability to recruit useful microbes and the promising use of rhizo-microbiome transplantation are highlighted. The goal of this review is to provide valuable insights into the current knowledge, which will facilitate the development of cutting-edge strategies for manipulating the rhizosphere microbiome for enhanced plant growth and stress tolerance. The article also indicates promising avenues for future research in this field.

Food fermentation has been practised since ancient times to improve sensory properties and food preservation. This review discusses the process of fermentation, which has undergone remarkable improvement over the years, from relying on natural microbes and spontaneous fermentation to back-slopping and the use of starter cultures. Modern biotechnological approaches, including genome editing using CRISPR/Cas9, have been investigated and hold promise for improving the fermentation process. The invention of next-generation sequencing techniques and the rise of meta-omics tools have advanced our knowledge on the characterisation of microbiomes involved in food fermentation and their functional roles. The contribution and potential advantages of meta-omics technologies in understanding the process of fermentation and examples of recent studies utilising multi-omics approaches for studying food-fermentation microbiomes are reviewed. Recent technological advances in studying food fermentation have provided insights into the ancient wisdom in the practice of food fermentation, such as the choice of substrates and fermentation conditions leading to desirable properties. This review aims to stimulate research on the process of fermentation and the associated microbiomes to produce fermented food efficiently and sustainably. Prospects and the usefulness of recent advances in molecular tools and integrated multi-omics approaches are highlighted.

Meeting the demands of the growing population requires increased food and feed production, leading to higher levels of agri-food waste. As this type of waste seriously threatens public health and the environment, novel approaches to waste management should be developed. Insects have been proposed as efficient agents for biorefining waste, producing biomass that can be used for commercial products. However, challenges in achieving optimal outcomes and maximizing beneficial results remain. Microbial symbionts associated with insects are known to have a critical role in the development, fitness, and versatility of insects, and as such, they can be utilized as targets for the optimization of agri-food waste insect-based biorefinery systems. This review discusses insect-based biorefineries, focusing on the agricultural applications of edible insects, mainly as animal feed and organic fertilizers. We also describe the interplay between agri-food waste-utilizing insects and associated microbiota and the microbial contribution in enhancing insect growth, development, and involvement in organic waste bioconversion processes. The potential contribution of insect gut microbiota in eliminating pathogens, toxins, and pollutants and microbe-mediated approaches for enhancing insect growth and the bioconversion of organic waste are also discussed. The present review outlines the benefits of using insects in agri-food and organic waste biorefinery systems, describes the roles of insect-associated microbial symbionts in waste bioconversion processes, and highlights the potential of such biorefinery systems in addressing the current agri-food waste-related challenges.

The members of the Burkholderia genus are characterized by high versatility and adaptability to various ecological niches. With the availability of the genome sequences of numerous species of Burkholderia, many studies have been conducted to elucidate the unique features of this exceptional group of bacteria. Genomic and metabolic plasticity are common among Burkholderia species, as evidenced by their relatively large multi-replicon genomes that are rich in insertion sequences and genomic islands and contain a high proportion of coding regions. Such unique features could explain their adaptability to various habitats and their versatile lifestyles, which are reflected in a multiplicity of species including free-living rhizospheric bacteria, plant endosymbionts, legume nodulators, and plant pathogens. The phytopathogenic Burkholderia group encompasses several pathogens representing threats to important agriculture crops such as rice. Contrarily, plant-beneficial Burkholderia have also been reported, which have symbiotic and growth-promoting roles. In this review, the taxonomy of Burkholderia is discussed emphasizing the recent updates and the contributions of genomic studies to precise taxonomic positioning. Moreover, genomic and functional studies on Burkholderia are reviewed and insights are provided into the mechanisms underlying the virulence and benevolence of phytopathogenic and plant-beneficial Burkholderia, respectively, on the basis of cutting-edge knowledge.

The aim of this study was to investigate differences between the gut microbiota composition in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and those with osteoarthritis (OA). Stool samples from nine RA patients and nine OA patients were collected, and DNA was extracted. The gut microbiome was assessed using 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing. The structures and differences in the gut microbiome between RA and OA were analyzed. The analysis of diversity revealed no differences in the complexity of samples. The RA group had a lower Bacteroidetes: Firmicutes ratio than did the OA group. Lactobacilli and Prevotella, particularly Prevotella copri, were more abundant in the RA than in the OA group, although these differences were not statistically significant. The relative abundance of Bacteroides and Bifidobacterium was lower in the RA group. At the species level, the abundance of certain bacterial species was significantly lower in the RA group, such as Fusicatenibacter saccharivorans, Dialister invisus, Clostridium leptum, Ruthenibacterium lactatiformans, Anaerotruncus colihominis, Bacteroides faecichinchillae, Harryflintia acetispora, Bacteroides acidifaciens, and Christensenella minuta. The microbial properties of the gut differed between RA and OA patients, and the RA dysbiosis revealed results similar to those of other autoimmune diseases, suggesting that a specific gut microbiota pattern is related to autoimmunity.