In plants, multistep component systems play important roles in signal transduction in response to environmental stimuli and plant growth regulators. Arabidopsis contains six nonethylene receptor histidine kinases, and, among them, AHK1/ATHK1, AHK2, AHK3, and CRE1 were shown to be stress-responsive, suggesting their roles in the regulation of plant response to abiotic stress. Gain- and loss-of-function studies in Arabidopsis indicated that AHK1 is a positive regulator of drought and salt stress responses and abscisic acid (ABA) signaling. Microarray analysis of the ahk1 mutant revealed a down-regulation of many stress- and/or ABA-inducible genes, including AREB1, ANAC, and DREB2A transcription factors and their downstream genes. These data suggest that AHK1 functions upstream of AREB1, ANAC, and DREB2A and positively controls stress responses through both ABA-dependent and ABA-independent signaling pathways. In addition, AHK1 plays important roles in plant growth because the ahk1 ahk2 ahk3 triple mutant showed further reduced growth. Unlike AHK1, loss-of-function analysis of ahk2, ahk3, and cre1 implied that the stress-responsive AHK2, AHK3, and CRE1 act as negative regulators in ABA signaling. AHK2 and AHK3 also negatively control osmotic stress responses in Arabidopsis because ahk2, ahk3, and ahk2 ahk3 mutants were strongly tolerant to drought and salt stress due to up-regulation of many stress- and/or ABA-inducible genes. Last, cytokinin clearly mediates stress responses because it was required for CRE1 to function as a negative regulator of osmotic stress.

https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/104/51/20623.full.pdf

Functional analysis of AHK1/ATHK1 and cytokinin receptor histidine kinases in response to abscisic acid, drought, and salt stress in Arabidopsis

Due to overgrowth in population, industrialization and civilization, demands for water are increasing geometrically. Therefore, alternative sources of water are required and wastewater treatment and recycling may serve this purpose. Among various water treatment technologies, adsorption onto activated carbon is in the front line due to its universal nature. Activated carbon is the best adsorbent able to capture inorganic, as well as organic, pollutants that contaminate water resources. Inorganic pollutants, especially metal ions, are more dangerous due to their toxic and possibly carcinogenic natures. Also they are most often persistent and difficult to biodegrade. The present article describes the quest to find an economically viable substitute to active carbon adsorbent to remove toxic metal ions. A brief discussion of design of batch and column adsorption experiments, development of inexpensive adsorbents, and experimental conditions of metal ions removal by batch and column procedures is included. Eff...

The Quest for Active Carbon Adsorbent Substitutes: Inexpensive Adsorbents for Toxic Metal Ions Removal from Wastewater

Enriched fluoride sorption using alumina/chitosan composite.

Preparation and application of alumina/chitosan biocomposite.

In this review, resources of nickel and status of different processes/technologies in vogue or being developed for extraction of nickel and associated metals from both primary and secondary resourc...

Advanced Review on Extraction of Nickel from Primary and Secondary Sources

Removal of nickel ions from industrial effluents has been studied using activated alumina prepared by the galvanic oxidation of aluminum metal at ambient temperature as the adsorbent. The effect of various factors, such as initial concentration of nickel, contact time, dose of adsorbent and pH of the solution has been investigated. Batch and column type of adsorption studies have been made. The results indicate that the adsorption process is favored at pH 9. The adsorption data were fitted with suitable adsorption isotherm. The optimum conditions for the best adsorption have been evaluated for the following factors: dosage, contact time, pH, initial concentration of nickel ions and temperature. The process of regeneration of the adsorbent has also been studied.

T Vasudevan

Papers

Removal of nickel ions from industrial plating effluents using activated alumina as adsorbent.