Bücher von Tariq Aftab

Emerging contaminants (ECs) are predominantly unregulated anthropogenic chemicals that occur in air, soil, water, food, and plant/animal tissues in trace concentrations. ECs are persistent in the environment, capable of perturbing the physiology of target receptors and, therefore, are increasingly regarded as a subject of concern. This volume aims to enhance understanding of emerging contaminants' effects on plants and the environment and to highlight and address the need of sustainable and eco-friendly approaches in mitigating and remediating the effects of ECs. The book comprises chapters from diverse areas dealing with biotechnology, microbial technology, nanotechnology, molecular biology, remediation, and more. This volume will be useful to remediation practitioners, researchers, regulators and graduate students.

This book provides information about plant¿environment studies and challenges for plant improvement to achieve food security. Plants face a wide range of environmental challenges, which are expected to become more intense as a result of global climate change. Plant¿environment interactions play an important role in the functioning of ecosystems. There are habitats throughout the world that present challenges to crop plants, such as through a lack of water and excessive, or toxic, salts in the soil. Soil properties represent a strong selection pressure for plant diversity and influence the structure of plant communities and participate to the generation and maintenance of biodiversity. Plant communities selected by environment grow by modifying soil physical, chemical, and biological properties, with consequent effects on survival and growth of plants. The complexity of plant¿environment interactions has recently been studied by developing a trait-based approach in which responses and effects of plants on environment were quantified and modeled. This fundamental research on plant¿environment interaction in ecosystems is essential to transpose knowledges of functional ecology to environmental management. Plants have adapted to an incredible range of environment, and extensive researches on ecological and environmental plant physiology have provided mechanistic understanding of the survival, distribution, productivity, and abundance of plant species across the diverse climates of our planet. Ecophysiological techniques have greatly advanced our understanding of photosynthesis, respiration, plant water relations, and plant responses to abiotic and biotic stresses, from instantaneous to evolutionary timescales. Ecophysiological studies also provide the basis for scaling plant physiological processes from the tissue to the canopy, ecosystem, region, and to a large extent, the entire globe. Given the above, the author proposes to bring forth a comprehensive book, ¿New Frontiers in Plant-Environment Interactions¿, highlighting the various emerging techniques and applications that are currently being used in plant¿environment interaction research and its future prospects. The author is sure that this book caters the need of all those who are working or have interest in the above topic.

Emerging contaminants (ECs) are predominantly unregulated anthropogenic chemicals that occur in air, soil, water, food, and plant/animal tissues in trace concentrations. ECs are persistent in the environment, capable of perturbing the physiology of target receptors and, therefore, are increasingly regarded as a subject of concern. This volume aims to enhance understanding of emerging contaminants¿ effects on plants and the environment and to highlight and address the need of sustainable and eco-friendly approaches in mitigating and remediating the effects of ECs. The book comprises chapters from diverse areas dealing with biotechnology, microbial technology, nanotechnology, molecular biology, remediation, and more. This volume will be useful to remediation practitioners, researchers, regulators and graduate students.

Environmental contaminants are chemicals that accidentally or deliberately enter the environment, often, but not always, as a result of human activities. Some of these contaminants may have been manufactured for industrial use, and because they are very stable, they do not break down easily. If released to the environment, these contaminants may enter the food chain. Other environmental contaminants are naturally occurring chemicals, but industrial activity may increase their mobility or increase the amount available to circulate in the environment, allowing them to enter the food chain at higher levels than would otherwise occur. Environmental contaminants influence the physiological cell reactions at different and heterogeneous basics and lead to altering in normal cell function primarily at the molecular and biochemical level. Molecular responses to such common environmental stresses have been studied intensively over the last few years, in which there is an intricate network of signaling pathways controlling perception of these environmental stress signals, the generation of second messengers and signal transduction. Recent advances in many areas of plant and microbial research, including genotyping, make scientists optimistic that valuable solutions will be found to allow deployment/commercialization of strategies better able to tolerate these environmental stresses.Environmental remediation was historically viewed as an inherently sustainable activity, as it restores contamination; however, researchers and practitioners are increasingly recognizing that there can be substantial environmental footprints and socioeconomic costs associated with remediation. Sustainability is an imperative in the emerging green and sustainable remediation movement, which is reshaping the entire remediation industry.Understanding the significant roles of sustainable or eco-friendly approaches in mitigating environmental contaminants, the current subject has recently attracted the attention of scientists from across the globe. This comprehensive volume "e;Sustainable Management of Environmental Contaminants: Eco-friendly Remediation Approaches"e; highlights the various prospects involved in current scenario. The current volume comprises the chapters from diverse areas dealing with biotechnology, microbial technology, nanotechnology, molecular biology, green and sustainable remediation, etc. I am hopeful that this volume will furnish the requisite of all those who are working or have interest in the current topic.

This book highlights 12 major plants in the Asteraceae family from the aspects of traditional uses as food and medicine, phytochemistry, and pharmacological activities.  Asteraceae is one of the largest family of flowering plants comprising over 1,600 plant genera and 32,000 plant species. Plants belonging to this family have a long history of being used as medicinal plants for the treatment of various diseases. Many of them are also used in the preparation of foods, beverages, and also used in pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries. In addition, plants such as Artemisia annua have played an important role in the discovery of novel drugs. The book summarizes the traditional uses of the plants in the family Asteraceae and their scientific validation, which helps readers understand their relation and impact on human health. It also explains the Phytochemistry of the species and presents the pharmacological activities and mechanisms in detail. Understanding current scientific knowledge will help in the commercialization of products based on these plants and also helps to find the research gaps that should be fulfilled in the future for their optimal use. It also helps in increasing the awareness of the plant species related to conservation, cultivation, and sustainable utilization. This edited volume comprises chapters contributed by experts from around the world. 

Molecular farming is a biotechnological approach that includes the genetic adjustment of agricultural products to create proteins and chemicals for profitable and pharmaceutical purposes. Plant molecular farming describes the manufacture of recombinant proteins and other biologically active product in plants. This approach depends on a genetic transformation of plants that can be accomplished by the methods of stable gene transfer, such as gene transfer to nuclei and chloroplasts, and unstable transfer methods like viral vectors. The requirement for recombinant proteins in terms of quality, quantity, and diversity is increasing exponentially This demand is traditionally met by recombinant protein construction technologies and the engineering of orthodox expression systems based on bacteria or mammalian cell cultures. However, majority of developing countries cannot afford the high costs of medicine derived from such existing methods. Hence, we need to produce not only the new drugs but also the cheaper versions of those already present in the market. Plant molecular farming is considered as a cost-effective technology that has grown and advanced tremendously over the past two decades.This book summarizes the advances and challenges of plant molecular farming for all those who are working on or have an interest in this rapidly emerging area of research.

Plant hormones have pivotal roles in the regulation of plant growth, development, and reproduction. Their signaling pathways are interconnected in a complex network, which provides plants with an enormous regulatory potential to rapidly adapt to their environment and to utilize their limited resources for growth and survival in a cost-efficient manner. Auxin is a hormone molecule whose activity levels are most important for its regulatory roles during plant cell, organ, and tissue development. Therefore, the precise regulation of auxin levels is an essential mechanism to fine-tune the activity of this powerful hormone during plant growth and development. Likewise, cytokinins exhibit a wide range of physiological functions, including regulation of shoot and root apical meristems, stimulation of branching, vascular development, chloroplast differentiation, stabilization of the structure and function of the photosynthetic machinery, delay of senescence, stomata opening, and elevation of the sink strength and nutritional signaling. Moreover, gibberellins also regulate many aspects of plant growth and development including seed germination, stem elongation, leaf expansion, and flower and fruit development. The broad implication of gibberellins in plant development is strictly associated with tight regulation of their metabolism by multiple environmental and endogenous factors, ranging from light and temperature to other hormones including feedback control. Understanding the significant roles of these phytohormones in plant biology, the current subject has attracted the attention of scientists from across the globe. This comprehensive volume "e;Auxins, Cytokinins and Gibberellins Signaling in Plants"e; highlights the various prospects involved in the current scenario. The book comprises the chapters from diverse areas dealing with biotechnology, molecular biology, proteomics, genomics, metabolomics, etc.

The edited book highlights various emerging Omics tools and techniques that are currently being used in the analysis of responses to different abiotic stress in agronomically important cereals and their applications in enhancing tolerance mechanism. Plants are severely challenged by diverse abiotic stress factors such as low water availability (drought), excess water (flooding/ waterlogging), extremes of temperatures (cold, chilling, frost, and heat), salinity, mineral deficiency, and heavy metal toxicity. Agronomically important cereal crops like Rice, Wheat, Maize, Sorghum, Pearl Millet, Barley, Oats, Rye, Foxtail Millets etc. that are the major sources of food material and nutritional components for human health are mostly exposed to abiotic stresses during the critical phases of flowering and grain yield. Different Omics platforms like genomics, transcriptomics proteomics, metabolomics and phenomics, in conjunction with breeding and transgenic technology, and high throughput technologies like next generation sequencing, epigenomics, genome editing and CRISPR-Cas technology have emerged altogether in understanding abiotic stress response and strengthening defense and tolerance mechanism of different cereals. This book is beneficial to different universities and research institutes working with different cereal crops in the areas of stress physiology, stress-associated genes and proteins, genomics, proteomics, genetic engineering, and other fields of molecular plant physiology. The book can also be used as advanced textbook for the course work of research and master's level students. It will be of use to people involved in ecological studies and sustainable agriculture. The proposed book bring together the global leaders working on environmental stress in different cereal crops and motivate scientists to explore new horizons in the relevant areas of research.

Malaria jest uwäana za jedn¿ z najstarszych chorób cz¿owieka. Od dawna ma ona powäny wp¿yw na zachorowalno¿¿ i ¿miertelno¿¿, a co za tym idzie na ekonomiczn¿ i spo¿eczn¿ struktur¿ narodów i spo¿ecze¿stw. Od dawna stosuje si¿ ró¿ne metody ograniczania jej cz¿sto¿ci wyst¿powania i skutków zarówno w klimacie umiarkowanym, jak i tropikalnym. Obecnie najskuteczniejsze leczenie malarii opiera si¿ na pochodnych artemizyny, wyci¿gu z ro¿liny Artemisia annua. Tylko terapie ¿¿czone (ACT) oparte na artemizynie spe¿niaj¿ mi¿dzynarodowe standardy ustanowione przez WHO i UNICEF w zakresie leczenia malarii. Obecne zapotrzebowanie na artemizyn¿ znacznie przewy¿sza jej podä, dlatego naukowcy na cäym ¿wiecie pracuj¿ nad zwi¿kszeniem zawarto¿ci artemizyny w ro¿linie za pomoc¿ ró¿nych ¿rodków. Niniejsza praca wyjänia potencjalne zastosowanie radiolitycznie otrzymanych oligomerów alginianu sodu wraz z aplikowanym do gleby fosforem w celu zwi¿kszenia produktywno¿ci i syntezy artemizyny (leku przeciwmalarycznego) w ro¿linach Artemisia annua.

Malaria is thought to be among the oldest of human diseases. It has long had serious effects on morbidity and mortality, and in turn on the economic and social fabric of nations and society. Various methods have long been utilized to mitigate its frequency and effects in both temperate and tropical climates. Presently the most effective treatment of malaria is based on derivatives of artemisinin, an extract from the plant Artemisia annua. Only artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) meets international standards set-up by WHO and UNICEF for the cure of malaria. The present demand for artemisinin is far more than that of supply, therefore, researchers are working round the world towards improving artemisinin content in the plant by various means. This work explains the potential use of radiolytically derived oligomers of sodium alginate together with soil-applied phosphorus induce the productivity and artemisinin (antimalarial drug) synthesis in Artemisia annua plants.