Considering the importance of medicinal plants, especially in drug industry and their shortage in nature, the study of different aspects of agronomy of these plants is of great value. Thyme is one of the most important medicinal plants that due to containing timol and karakerol, has benefits including antibloated antityphoid, antidiphtheria and antipulmonary poisoning. The salt and drought stresses are known to be important factors in yield decrease of this plant. In order to study the effect of salt and drought stresses, two experiments were conducted separably in a completely randomized design on Shirazian Thyme with four replications. The drought stress was applied in four levels with different osmotic pressures (0, 0.19, 0.41 and 0.99 Mega Pascal) using Polyethylene Glycol (Molecular weight 6000). Salt stress was also applied in four levels including 0, 30, 60 and 90 Mmol/Lit NaCl. After the exertion of treatments, counting of germinated seeds was continued daily for ten days, and characteristics such as germination percentage, germination speed, radicle and primary shoot dry weight, and radicle and primary shoot length were measured. The most germination percentage and speed belonged to control treatment (1.288) and the minimum belonged to 0.99 mega Pascal (1.058). There was a significant difference among different salt stress treatments for germination speed, radicle length and primary shoot length. The most reduction in germination percentage, germination speed, radicle and primary shoot length was observed in 90 Mmol/Lit NaCl. Obtained results indicated that drought and salt stress caused a significant decrease in germination percentage and germination speed, radicle and primary shoot length, as well as primary shoot and radicle dry weight.

Background & Purpose: Salt and pepper change is the retinal change that occurs in human retina and its cause is not entirely known. In the present study, the retina of patients infected with Giardia lamblia living in Tehran was examined for presence of "salt and pepper" retinal change. Methods& Patients: 50 girdiasis patients were selected as study group and 50 healthy individuals as control group. The retina of two groups was tested by ophthalmologist. White blood cells and eosinophila percentage were counted in haematology lab. For measurements of IgA and IgG Levels, SRID technique, and for IgE level, ELISA technique was applied. Results & Conclusion: The results indicated, six patients of study group showed "salt and pepper" retinal change in their eyes. When the patients treated with metronidazole, the ocular change disappeared in three of them. In addition, eosinophila percentage, IgA, IgE and IgG levels in the infected patients were found increased significantly in comparison with control group. Meanwhile, among patients with ocular change and without ocular change the differences of eosinophila percentage and IgE levels were found significant, According to IgA and IgG levels, no significant difference between two groups were observed.    

Tolerance to salt (NaCl) and drought conditions of treated seeds (control, osmopriming and hydropriming) of flax (Linum usitatissimum L.) genotype was evaluated at germination stage induced by PEG-6000 at the same water potentials of zero, -2, -4 bar, which electrical conductivity (EC) value of the NaCl solutions were zero, 40, 80 mM. The results showed that increasing drought caused a reduction in germination percentage and rate, root and shoot length and dry weight of flax genotype. Salinity stress significantly reduces germination rate and also root and shoot lengths of flax seeds. Hydropriming and osmopriming significantly increased germination rate, root length and shoot/root ration of flax seeds in both experiments. However, germination percentage significantly increased only in hydropriming treatment in drought experiment. Root dry weight increased in hydropriming and osmopriming treatment, only in drought experiment. Hydropriming and osmopriming could be used to improved tolerance in salinity and drought stresses in flax by less reduce in root and shoot lengths.

Salvia genus has 58 annual and perennial herbaceous species in Iran that 17 species are endemic and Salvia sahendica Boiss & Buhse is one of them. In order to investigate the effects of drought stress caused by PEG 6000 and salinity stress induced by NaCl on germination factors of Salvia sahendica, two experiments were carried out based on a completely randomized design with 3 replications. In the first experiment, the effects of drought levels (0 as control, -2, -4, -6, -8 and -10 bar) and in the second one, the effects of salinity levels (0 as control, 50, 100, 150, 200 and 250 mMol) on percentage and rate of germination, vigor index, radicle and plumule length were studied. According to the results, different levels of drought and salt stress had significant effects on all measured characteristics. In drought stress test, the highest and lowest percentage of germination was observed in -2 and -10 bar (respectively, 60.11 and 41.55 %) and highest vigor index was measured in -4 bar (62.07). Study of salinity stress test showed that the highest and lowest percentage of germination was in 50 and 250 mM treatments (55.61 and 12.43 %, respectively) and highest vigor index was observed in control (54.07). Radicle length was affected less than plumule length in these stress conditions. It seems that S.sahendica is well tolerance to drought and salt stress in germination stage.

Salt and drought stress are of high importance in seed germination and seedling establishment.Priming has been successfully demonstrated to improve germination and seedling emergence in seeds of many crops, particularly seeds of vegetables and small seeded grasses.Agropyron cristatum (L.) Gaertn provides thin and sensitive seedlings. This species could be considered as a suitable plant for seeding plans in arid and semi-arid regions as well as saline soils of Iran. The objective of current research was to evaluate priming methods for increase of germination properties and initial growth parameters under salinity and drought stress. For this purpose factorial experimental completely randomized design in three replications were performed. First factor was priming treatments, the second third factors were Iso-osmotic solution and the stress levels, respectively. The results showed that the effect of main treatments and their interactions (pretreatment, levels of stress) was significant on germination speed (P £ 0.05). Increase of stress levels resulted in decrease of germination so that in -8 bar germination stopped. Totally, it was found that applied treatments were not affective for improvement of germination and initial growth properties under stress conditions.

There exist a number of reports regarding secondary metabolites increasing under the environmental stresses. Hence, to study the effects of drought (70 and 40% field capacity) and salinity (50 mM NaCl) on some morphological and biochemical parameters of summer Savory (Satureja hortensis L.), inclusive fresh and dry weight of leaf, root and shoot, plant height, root length, root to shoot ratio, several leaves and branches, total chlorophyll, chlorophyll a and b, anthocyanin, flavonoids and total alkaloid, an experiment was conducted in a completely randomized design with four replications and treatments. Biochemical compounds were measured using spectrophotometric method. The analysis of variance were showed that drought and salinity, plant tissue and their interactions were significantly (p£0.01) different for all chemical compounds except for flavonoids. The results were showed that salt stress did not have negative impact on morphological traits, and in salinity compared to non-stress, plant height (from 18.4 to 19.8 cm), a number of leaves (from 33 to 36) and root fresh weight (from 0.05 to 0.08 gr) increased significantly, but shoot fresh weight (with 0.5 and 0.52 gr), shoot dry weight (0.03 and 0.03 gr), root dry weight (0.02 and 0.016 gr) and leaf dry weight (0.04 and 0.04 gr) did not have any significant differences. All features were affected by drought stress comparison to non-stress so it was determined that summer savory is sensitive to drought and salinity-resistant. The total alkaloid increased under severe drought stress (0.173 OD.g-1.DW) and salinity (0.16 OD.g-1.DW) compared to non-stress (0.12 OD.g-1.DW) about 44 and 33%, respectively. Carotenoids decreased with increasing severity of drought stress, while it increased under salt stress (0.133 mg.g-1.FW) compared with non- stress (0.12 mg.g-1.FW). Flavonoid content was not affected by stress treatments, while the amount of anthocyanins decreased significantly in drought and salinity (0.67 and 0.62 OD.g-1.FW) compared to non-stress (1.23 OD.g-1.FW).

Objective Abiotic stresses such as drought and salinity significantly affect plant growth and performance. Plants use strategies to adapt and tolerate drought and salt stress that may threaten their survival during their life cycle, one of which is miRNA-mediated posttranscriptional regulation. Materials and methods In the current research, miRNAs that showed significant expression during salt and drought stress were selected by checking the references to investigate this phenomenon in rapeseed plants. The phylogenetic tree was constructed to analyze and compare the evolutionary relationships and conservation of MicroRNA effective in drought and salinity stress in Brassica napus, Brassica rapa, and Brassica oleracea species. Target genes for selected miRNAs were identified using psRNATarget online software. Categorization and gene ontology of target genes and identification of biological pathways were accomplished,also, proteins were classified based on molecular function and biological processes. The Protein-protein interaction was analyzed to comprehensively interpret the relationships between the target genes. In the present study, 225 target genes for miRNAs were identified. Results After examining the protein interaction network, it was found that there were the most interactions between ribosomal, proteasome subunits and the ubiquitin-proteasome system. This result determined that drought and salinity stress leads to the activation of various biological systems and pathways and changes in gene expression along with the activation of the protein synthesis machine and alterations in protein content. By activating post-transcriptional gene regulation (PTGR) and post-translational modifications (PTMs), the plant regulates the abundance, activities, intracellular distribution, and transport of regulatory proteins involved in various growth processes as well as stress response. Conclusion The results of this study will lead to a broader perspective regarding stress and its effect on the pathways involved in cellular processes and will reveal the wide dimensions of the stress response.