Comparison of genetic variation among accessions of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Aegilops tauschii</Emphasis> using AFLP and SSR markers

Genetic diversity of 54 accessions of Aegilops tauschii from five countries was assessed using sequence-tagged microsatellites (or simple sequence repeats, SSRs) and amplified fragment length polymorphisms (AFLPs). In the case of AFLP analysis, a total of 256 amplification products obtained, 234 of them were polymorphic across all the 54 accessions. A total of 224 fragments were obtained from the 24 SSR primers and 219 of fragments were polymorphic across all the genotypes screened. Based on both AFLP and SSR markers, the highest percentage of polymorphisms were obtained in Iranian and accessions of unknown origin. The highest polymorphic information content (PIC) value was observed for SSRs (0.82) while the highest marker index (MI) value was for AFLPs (8.5) reflecting the hyper-variability of the first and the distinctive nature of the second system. Principal co-ordinate analysis (PCO) revealed congruent patterns of genetic relationships for both data sets, but did not group accessions strictly according to their geographical origins. Poor correlation was found between AFLP and SSR marker loci. This low association may be due to low number of AFLP and SSR markers. These results show that molecular markers can help to organize the genetic variability and expose useful diversity for breeding purposes.     

Characterization of pine nuts in the U.S. market, including those associated with "pine mouth", by GC-FID

Taste disturbances following consumption of pine nuts, referred to as "pine mouth", have been reported by consumers in the United States and Europe. Nuts of Pinus armandii have been associated with pine mouth, and a diagnostic index (DI) measuring the content of Δ5-unsaturated fatty acids relative to that of their fatty acid precursors has been proposed for identifying nuts from this species. A 100 m SLB-IL 111 GC column was used to improve fatty acid separations, and 45 pine nut samples were analyzed, including pine mouth-associated samples. This study examined the use of a DI for the identification of mixtures of pine nut species and showed the limitation of morphological characteristics for species identification. DI values for many commercial samples did not match those of known reference species, indicating that the majority of pine nuts collected in the U.S. market, including those associated with pine mouth, are mixtures of nuts from different Pinus species.     

Neotyphodium endophytes trigger salt resistance in tall and meadow fescues

Infection with Neotyphodium spp. endophytes increases resistance to drought stress and soil mineral imbalances in tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea Schreb. = Lolium arundinaceum (Schreb.) S. J. Darbysh.) and meadow fescue (Festuca pratensis Huds. = Lolium pratense (Huds.) Darbysh.). We hypothesized that resistance of these grasses to salinity stress may also be attributed to endophyte infection. Two tall fescue genotypes, Fa75 and Fa83, and one meadow fescue genotype, Fp60, infected (E+) with their endophytic fungi, Neotyphodium coenophialum (Glenn, Bacon and Hanlin) and N. uncinatum (Glenn, Bacon and Hanlin), respectively, and their noninfected counterparts (E–) were cultured in nutrient solution at three salinity levels of 0, 85, and 170 mM NaCl. Except for genotype Fa75, E+ plants exhibited higher leaf survival rates than E– clones at a high salinity level (170 mM). Root dry matter was higher in E+ than in E– plants, but shoot dry matter was not affected by endophyte infection. This resulted in a lower shoot‐to‐root ratio in E+ plants (1.63) compared with E– plants (2.40). Sodium (Na⁺) and chloride (Cl^–) concentrations were greater in roots of E– than in E+ clones. In shoots, Na⁺ and Cl^– concentrations were not affected by the endophyte. In contrast, E+ plants accumulated more potassium (K⁺), which resulted in a greater K⁺ : Na⁺ ratio in shoots of E+ than in those of E– plants. Our results show that endophyte infection reduced Na⁺ and Cl^– concentrations in tall fescue and meadow fescue roots but increased K⁺ concentrations in the shoots. Based on these results, we conclude that endophyte‐infected grasses may thrive better in salinity‐stress environments.     

Metal micronutrients relationships in crop,soil, and common weeds of two maize (Zea mays L.) fields

Deficiencies of metal micronutrients are common in some calcareous soils. Samples of aerial parts of maize and five common weeds and also soil beneath these plants were collected and analyzed to investigate the status and relationships of metal micronutrients in soil, crop, and common weeds of maize field trials at two sites. Results showed that Fe concentration in five studied weeds was higher than that of maize; the highest Fe concentration was found in Convolvolus arvensis and Echinochloa crus-galli (first site) and in Convolvolus arvensis tissues (second site). At both sites, the highest Mn concentration was observed in aboveground parts of Echinochloa crus-galli. The concentration of Mn (both sites) and Fe and Cu (second site) were remarkably higher in Echinochloa crus-galli tissues in comparison with maize. Also the concentrations of Fe (both sites) and Cu (second site) were considerably higher in Convolvolus arvensis tissues in comparison with maize. Available Fe was the highest in the soil beneath Convolvolus arvensis and Portulaca oleracea (first site) and beneath Convolvolus arvensis and Cenopodium album (second site). The high value of available Fe in the soil beneath Convolvolus arvensis may explain why Fe concentration was the highest in aerial parts of this weed species.     

Leaf epidermis characters of Iranian <Emphasis Type="Italic">Pyrus</Emphasis> L. (Rosaceae) and their taxonomic implications

Pyrus L. is a taxonomically difficult genus mainly because of interspecific and intergeneric hybridization. A majority of the wild species of Pyrus occurs in Iran, making this region very important for any study of the systematics of the genus. In this investigation, seven quantitative and seven qualitative characters of leaf epidermis, particularly epidermal cells shape, anticlinal walls patterns, type and size of stomata, and cuticular ornamentation of 22 taxa of Pyrus plus Malus orientalis are studied for assessment of their taxonomical value at different levels. Scanning electron microscopy and light microscopy were used for evaluation of epidermis features of these taxa. Some characters such as shape and anticlinal wall pattern of epidermal cells, presence of adaxial stomata, pattern of cuticular ornamentation and epicuticular wax types are useful in separation of some Pyrus taxa. Moreover, Malus orientalis is recognized easily from all Pyrus species via the density of stomata. According to ANOVA analysis, all quantitative variables show high level of between-group differentiation. Also, based on the hierarchical clustering results gained by multiple correspondence analysis and factor analysis of mixed data analyses of the current study, micromorphological characters of epidermal cells reflect the ecological conditions of pear taxa, so most of the mesophyte and xerophyte taxa can be separated from each other in accordance with epidermal cells characters, specially the anticlinal wall pattern. Totally, the application of some other biological markers, particularly suitable molecular data are needed to present well-resolved relationships among these taxa.     

A new color index for vegetation segmentation and classification

Color vegetation indices enable various precision agriculture applications by transforming a 3D-color image into its 1D-grayscale counterpart, such that the color of vegetation pixels can be accentuated, while those of nonvegetation pixels are attenuated. The quality of the transformation is essential to the outcomes of computational analyses to follow. The objective of this article is to propose a new vegetation index, the Elliptical Color Index (ECI), which leverages the quadratic discriminant analysis of 3D-color images along a normalized red (r)—green (g) plane. The proposed index is defined as an ellipse function of r and g variables with a shape parameter. For comparison, the ECI’s performance was evaluated along with six other indices, by using 240 color images as a test sample captured from four vegetation species under different illumination and background conditions, together with the corresponding ground-truth patterns. For comparative analysis, the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) and the precision–recall (PR) curves helped quantify the overall performance of vegetation segmentation across all of the vegetation indices evaluated. For a practical appraisal of vegetation segmentation outcomes, this paper applied Gaussian filtering, and then the thresholding method of Otsu, to the grayscale images transformed by each of the indices. Overall, the test results confirmed that ECI outperforms the other indices, in terms of the area under the curves of ROC and PR, as well as other performance metrics, including total error, precision, and F-score.

     

Comparing analgesic effects of a topical herbal mixed medicine with salicylate in patients with knee osteoarthritis

Knee osteoarthritis is the most common cause of disability among people and it is a common disease of joints that can lead to cartilage damage. In this study the analgesic effects of a herbal ointment containing cinnamon, ginger, mastic (Saghez) and sesame oil is compared with Salicylate ointment in patients suffering from knee osteoarthritis. It was a double-blind randomized controlled trail study. Patients with diagnosed arthritis were involved in the study and they were divided in two groups via block randomization method. For six weeks, twice a day, intervention group applied herbal ointment and control group used Salicylate ointment. The severity of pain, morning stiffness and limited motion were measured using Visual Analog Pain Scale. In order to analyze the trends of these three indexes, repeated measurement test was used. Ninety two participates with the mean age of 52.2 (+/- 12.4) years and with the mean disease period of 30.45 (+/- 30.3) months were involved in the study. There was no significant difference between two groups regarding the distribution of sex, weight, height, BMI and the duration of illness. No statistical difference was observed between two groups regarding pain relief, morning stiffness and limited motion; nevertheless in repeated measurements during second, forth and sixth weeks in both groups the decreasing trend of these three indexes had been statistically significant (p < 0.0001). It seems that using this herbal combination is clinically effective for patients suffering from knee osteoarthritis in order to decrease their pain, morning stiffness and limited motion; its effect is comparable with Salicylate ointment.     

Abnormal serum thyroid hormones concentration with healthy functional gland: a review on the metabolic role of thyroid hormones transporter proteins

Laboratory findings can definitely help the patients not to enter into status, where the damage might be happen due to a miss-diagnosis based on clinical assessment alone. The secondary disease accompanied with thyroid patients should also carefully check out due to the interference which some diseases can cause in the amount of serum thyroid hormone, particularly the free thyroxin. The dilemma over thyroid clinical diagnosis occur due to variation on serum thyroid hormone which initiated by other non-thyroidal disorders which can play an important roles in metabolic disorders of thyroid hormone due to the alteration which occur on the serum level of thyroid hormone transporter proteins. The majority of serum thyroid hormones of up to 95-99% are bound to the carrier proteins mainly to Thyroxin-Binding Globulins (TBG), some transthyretin already known as pre-albumin and albumin which are all synthesis in the liver and any modification which alter their production may alter the status of thyroid hormones. It seems TBG, transthyretin and albumin carries 75, 20, 5% of thyroid hormones within blood circulation, respectively. The dilemma facing the thyroid hormones following disruption of thyroid hormone transporter protein synthesis originate from this fact that any alteration of these protein contribute to the alteration of total thyroid and free serum thyroid hormones which are in fact the biologically active form of thyroid hormones. The subsequent of latter implication result in miss-understanding and miss-diagnosis of thyroid function tests, with possible wrongly thyroid clinical care, followed by undesired therapy of otherwise healthy thyroid.