Main conclusion In addition to model system studies and synthetic engineering, prioritizing the discovery of naturally occurring apomixis-like mutants in crops would provide an immediate route to applied innovation in plant breeding. Abstract Apomixis is a remarkable form of asexual reproduction that enables plants to produce seeds without meiotic reduction or gametic fertilization in ovules. This process is mainly divided int...

Bacterial growing resistance to antibiotics poses a critical threat to global health. This study investigates, for the first time, the antibiofilm properties of Vicia ervilia agglutinin (VEA) from six different V. ervilia accessions against pathogenic bacteria, and the yeast Candida albicans . In the absence of antimicrobial properties, purified VEA significantly inhibited biofilm formation, both in Gram-positive and Gram-nega...

Bitter vetch ( Vicia ervilia (L.) Willd.), one of the Near Eastern founder crops, is an annual cleistogamous legume domesticated during the Neolithic period. Originally used for human consumption, over time it was replaced by other pulses and downgraded to a fodder crop. When coupled with a small degree of cross hybridization, cleistogamy confers evolutive plasticity to the plant species. The aim of the present work consisted...