Biology subjects

Engel, R.

Publications and source records attributed to Engel, R..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2025

Small grassland patches are hotspots for medicinal plants and associated phytochemical diversity in European agricultural landscapes

O_LIMedicinal plants are threatened by overcollection and habitat loss due to human activities. In this study, we aimed to reveal how ancient earthen burial mounds covered with successional grasslands of different ages can contribute to conservation of medicinal plants and related phytochemical diversity in European agricultural landscapes. C_LIO_LIUsing vegetation data collected from 166 mounds in Hungary, we identified the medicinal plant species present at these sites, and based on multiple literature sources, provided the secondary metabolite profiles of the medicinal plants and plant communities. By using generalized linear mixed models and redundancy analysis we investigated how the age of the vegetation, percentage of croplands around the sites, site area, and soil properties influence the diversity of medicinal plants and associated phytochemicals. C_LIO_LIWe found that mounds provide safe havens for a wide range of medicinal plants and secondary metabolites. Our results showed that grassland-related medicinal plants producing iridoids and diterpenes were typical on mounds with older grasslands. A large proportion of croplands in the neighboring landscape and high soil pH supported generalist medicinal plants producing nitrogen-containing and sesquiterpene related secondary metabolites. Higher soil nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium content favored medicinal plants producing lignans, glycosides, and organic acids. C_LIO_LIOur results suggest that the high phytochemical diversity is supported by the occurrence of various compounds facilitating the adaptation of medicinal plants to the various environmental stressors and biotic factors, such as competition, herbivory and pathogens, present in sites embedded in agricultural landscapes. C_LI Societal Impact StatementBesides being important components of landscape-level biodiversity, medicinal plants are essential resources for traditional and modern healthcare. However, in parallel with biodiversity loss driven by human activities, populations of medicinal plants have also declined. By maintaining connections between nature, culture, and people, sacred natural sites can help counteract this trend. We studied the potential of ancient burial mounds to maintain populations of medicinal plants and related phytochemical diversity in European agricultural landscapes. Our findings highlight the importance of conserving grassland vegetation and associated biodiversity at these sites, which is crucial for preserving a key ecosystem service in intensively managed landscapes.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2024

Effect of pre-germination temperature conditions on germination characteristics of temperate grassland species

Germination characteristics of target species used for grassland restoration are often unknown, despite such information would be essential for designing restoration interventions. Filling this knowledge gap and improving our understanding about germination responses of grassland species to varying cold and warm treatments could be especially important in the face of climate change. Here we studied the effect of three different durations of warm dry stratification and three different durations of cold wet stratification, and their combinations in a full factorial design (in total 15 different pre-germination treatments), on the germination capacity of 48 grassland species native to Central Europe. Stratification treatments modelled present and forecasted summer (1-3 months warm period) and winter (1-3 months cold period) temperature conditions, while the study of the combined effect of these treatments is especially important in spring-germinating species. As response variables, we calculated relative response indexes and germination uncertainties of each species separately and applied general linear models to study the effect of treatments on these variables. We found clear effect of warm- or cold stratification on relative response indexes only in four species: strong positive response to warm stratification was found in Silene conica, while strong positive response to cold stratification was found in Agrimonia eupatoria, Echium vulgare, and Plantago lanceolata. The responses to treatment combinations were contradictory or lacked clear trends in most of the species. Germination uncertainty in general was high for all species, supporting the fact that Central European grassland species often rely on bet hedging as risk spreading strategy, to avoid unfavourable conditions during seedling establishment.

plant biology↗

bioRxiv2019

SRSF3 confers selective processing of miR-17-92 cluster to promote tumorigenic properties in colorectal cancer

Almost a half of microRNAs (miRNAs) in mammalian cells are generated from polycistronic primary transcripts encoding more than one miRNA. Mature miRNAs from polycistronic clusters frequently regulate complementary sets of target mRNAs. How the processing of individual miRNAs within the clusters is controlled to give rise to distinct miRNA levels in vivo is not fully understood. Our investigation of SRSF3 (Serine-Arginine Rich Splicing Factor3) regulated noncoding RNAs in pluripotent cells identified miR-17-92 cluster as a key SRSF3 target, SRSF3 binding to the CNNC motif 17-18nt downstream of the miRNA stem loop. Here we show that SRSF3 binding site context, not merely the distance from the stem loop, within primary transcript is a critical determinant of the processing efficiency of distinct miRNAs derived from the miR-17-92 cluster. SRSF3 specifically enhanced the processing of two paralog miRNAs, miR-17 and miR-20a, targeting overlapping mRNAs including the cell cycle inhibitor CDKN1A/p21. Functional analysis demonstrated that SRSF3 inhibits CDKN1A expression and promotes cell cycle and self-renewal through the miRNA processing pathway both in normal pluripotent stem cells and cancer cells. Strikingly, analysis of colorectal cancer tumour-normal pairs demonstrated that the SRSF3-regulated miRNA processing pathway is present in a large proportion of colorectal cancer patients and distinguishes poorly differentiated high-grade tumours. Our research uncovers a critical role of SRSF3 in selective processing of miR-17-92 miRNAs, which mechanistically and functionally links SRSF3 to hallmark features of cancer.

cell biology↗