Table olives are a common and well-known food in the whole Mediterranean area, produced and consumed in great quantities. Many deepgreen olives can be found on sale in the South of Italy. Sometimes a deep color could be the result of the fraudulent addition of a coloring agent (E141ii, copper chlorophyllins) during the pickling process, in spite of the European Union legislation that does not allow the addition of any colorant to fruits included table olives. The objectives of this study were to use a relatively simple method of detection of E141ii added to table olives, to verify the presence on the Italian market of artificially colored table olives, and to show that also CuSO4 can be employed for table olive re-greening. Compounds with chromatographic and spectral characteristics similar to the ones from the E141ii (Cu chlorin e6, Cu isochlorin e4, Cu pyropheophorbide a) were found in 8 samples out of 16. These results show that the fraudulent addition of colorant to table olives is a quite common practice. More pressing controls and analysis are required to ensure the complete food safety and the compliance with the current law.

Mycophenolic acid (MPA) is an inosine monophosphate dehydrogenase inhibitor whose antiviral mechanism of action is supposed to interfere with NAD(+)/NADH conversion. Its effects on trans-plasma membrane electron transport (t-PMET) and on trans-plasma membrane electric potential (t-PMEP), which are involved in the NAD(+)/NADH conversion, were investigated using microelectrochemical techniques in tobacco plants infected by Cucumber mosaic virus. In these tests, ferricyanide (Fe(3+)) was used as electron acceptor in assays performed with intact cells; ferricyanide is converted to ferrocyanide (Fe(2+)) by one-electron reduction, and the rate of this reduction can be monitored in order to investigate the effects on t-PMET or t-PMEP. Considering tests on t-PMEP, MPA treatment of samples induced membrane depolarization and this effect was greater in healthy samples compared to infected ones. In any case, complete repolarization was achieved, indicating no irreversible damage to the membrane due to MPA administration. Moreover, in samples pre-treated with MPA, the extent of depolarization caused by Fe(3+) administration was lower than in samples without pre-treatment but the MPA effect was not related to virus infection. With regard to tests on t-PMET, MPA caused a reduction in Fe(3+)/Fe(2+) conversion compared to untreated plants. However, infected samples were less sensitive to MPA treatment, which may be due to the concurrent entry of MPA within the symplast that, as indicated by t-PMEP tests, was lower in infected samples. In conclusion, MPA interferes with membrane activity linked to NAD(+)/NADH conversion, acting differently in infected or healthy samples during drug uptake by cells.

Electrophysiological techniques were applied to investigate the action of antiviral drugs during trans-plasma events in in vivo grapevine cells infected by GLRaV-1 and GLRaV-3. Carbon fiber microelectrodes and redox-sensitive dyes were used to measure trans-plasma membrane electron transport (t-PMET) activity in healthy and infected samples treated with ribavirin, tiazofurin and oseltamivir. Each drug caused a reduction in oxidation current (expressed as Δ[Fe(2+)]) in healthy samples, indicating t-PMET inhibition. In almost all infected samples, the effect of drugs on t-PMET activity was significantly lower, suggesting that higher content of NADH in infected plants can interfere with t-PMET inhibition caused by drugs. Moreover, virus-infected samples exhibited elevated t-PMET activity compared to healthy samples. Analogous effects were observed by dye tests. Considering the effects of drugs on trans-plasma membrane potential, tests showed the activity of a proton pump during drug treatments with no significant difference with regard to health status.

Therapiddevelopmentofnewtechnologiesandthechanginglandscapeoftheonlineworld (e.g., Internet of Things (IoT), Internet of All, cloud-based solutions) provide a unique opportunity for developing automated and robotic systems for urban farming, agriculture, and forestry. Technological advances in machine vision, global positioning systems, laser technologies, actuators, and mechatronics have enabled the development and implementation of robotic systems and intelligent technologies for precision agriculture. Herein, we present and review robotic applications on plant pathology and management, and emerging agricultural technologies for intra-urban agriculture. Greenhouse advanced management systems and technologies have been greatly developed in the last years, integrating IoT and WSN (Wireless Sensor Network). Machine learning, machine vision, and AI (Artificial Intelligence) have been utilized and applied in agriculture for automated and robotic farming. Intelligence technologies, using machine vision/learning, have been developed not only for planting, irrigation, weeding (to some extent), pruning, and harvesting, but also for plant disease detection and identification. However, plant disease detection still represents an intriguing challenge, for both abiotic and biotic stress. Many recognition methods and technologies for identifying plant disease symptoms have been successfully developed; still, the majority of them require a controlled environment for data acquisition to avoid false positives. Machine learning methods (e.g., deep and transfer learning) present promising results for improving imageprocessingandplantsymptomidentification. Nevertheless,diagnosticspecificityisachallenge for microorganism control and should drive the development of mechatronics and robotic solutions for disease management.

To evaluate the role of purines in antiviral treatments in plants, ribavirin (RB) and tiazofurin (TZ) were applied in combination with guanosine (GS) or adenosine (AS) in in vitro grapevine or tobacco explants infected by Grapevine leafroll associated virus 3 (GLRaV-3) and Cucumber mosaic virus (CMV), respectively. Using a microelectrochemical (trans-plasma membrane electron transport, t-PMET) technique, in vivo assay of free reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NADH) was also carried out to estimate the inosine monophosphate dehydrogenase inhibition caused by drugs. Antiviral effectiveness of TZ, evaluated as virus-free explants or virus copies, was significantly hindered by GS in both species, while AS did not interfere with the drugs. GS, but not AS, slightly hindered the antiviral effectiveness of RB. With regard to NADH tests, t-PMET inhibition caused by RB and TZ was dose dependent and the interference of drugs with the NAD+/NADH conversion was confirmed by NADH content. Findings indicate that exogenous GS up to 0.50 mM replenished the GS pool depleted by drugs, contrasting antiviral action. At higher doses of GS, the TZ antiviral action was completely inhibited and exogenous GS caused a feedback that reduced t-PMET activity. The reversal was partially against RB, suggesting that the reduction of the GS pool contributed to the antiviral activity of RB, but it was not the only cause of antiviral effectiveness.

Wheat, the main food source for a third of world population, appears strongly under threat because of predicted increasing temperatures coupled to drought. Plant complex molecular response to drought stress relies on the gene network controlling cell reactions to abiotic stress. In the natural environment, plants are subjected to the combination of abiotic and biotic stresses. Also the response of plants to biotic stress, to cope with pathogens, involves the activation of a molecular network. Investigations on combination of abiotic and biotic stresses indicate the existence of cross-talk between the two networks and a kind of overlapping can be hypothesized. In this work we describe the isolation and characterization of a drought-related durum wheat (Triticum durum Desf.) gene, identified in a previous study, coding for a protein combining features of NBS-LRR type resistance protein with a S/TPK domain, involved in drought stress response. This is one of the few examples reported where all three domains are present in a single protein and, to our knowledge, it is the first report on a gene specifically induced by drought stress and drought-related conditions, with this particular structure.

Recently, Xylella fastidiosa was reported in Italy, associated with the "Olive Quick Decline Syndrome". The cv. Leccino exhibits an evident tolerance with a slow disease progression compared with the other cultivars. Between the mechanisms proposed to explain the putative tolerance of some hosts to X. fastidiosa diseases, lignin deposition plays an important role. Analysis of phenolic compounds in healthy and infected Leccino and Cellina di Nardò leaves showed, in the two cultivars, a reduction of hydroxytyrosol glucoside (usually associated with drought and cold stress) and, only in Leccino, an increase of quinic acid, precursor of lignin. To determine if lignin biosynthesis is involved in defence response, we investigated the expression of genes coding for entry-point enzymes in different branches of the phenylpropanoid pathway. In stems of Cellina di Nardò infected plants, Cinnamate-4-Hydroxylase (C4H) and 4-Coumarate:CoA Ligase (4CL) resulted strongly down-regulated, indicating a plant disease response since the inhibition of C4H is reported to promote the accumulation of benzoic acid and salicylic acid as defence signals. Instead, in the cv. Leccino, Cinnamoyl-CoA Reductase (CCR, reported to be strongly induced during the formation of lignin defence response associated) was up-regulated in the stem of infected plants; moreover, Polyphenol oxidase (PPO), coding for an enzyme involved in the hydroxytyrosol biosynthesis, was down-regulated. The quantification of lignin in healthy and infected branches of both cultivars, showed a significant increase of total lignin in infected Leccino compared with the sensitive cultivar; moreover, histochemical observations of stem sections exhibited a different lignin distribution in the sclerenchyma and in the xylem tissue of infected Leccino plants compared to sections of healthy ones. Results suggest a critical role for lignin in X. fastidiosa tolerance of cv. Leccino.