Sequencing of a Cultivated Diploid CottonGenome-Gossypium arboreum

Sequencing the genomes of crop species and model systems contributes significantly to our under-standing of the organization,structure and function of plant genomes.In a "white paper" published in2007,the cotton community set forth a strategic plan for sequencing the AD genome of cultivated up-land cotton that initially targets less complex diploid genomes.This strategy banks on the high degreeof conservation between diploid progenitors and AD species that will allow information derived fromdiploid genomes to be directly applied to the tetraploids.     

Adaptation and evaluation of the National Cancer Institute's Diet History Questionnaire and nutrient database for Canadian populations

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Despite assumed similarities in Canadian and US dietary habits, some differences in food availability and nutrient fortification exist. Food-frequency questionnaires designed for the USA may therefore not provide the most accurate estimates of dietary intake in Canadian populations. Hence, we undertook to evaluate and modify the National Cancer Institute's Diet History Questionnaire (DHQ) and nutrient database. METHODS: Of the foods queried on the DHQ, those most likely to differ in nutrient composition were identified. Where possible these foods were matched to comparable foods in the Canadian Nutrient File. Nutrient values were examined and modified to reflect the Canadian content of minerals (calcium, iron, zinc) and vitamins (A, C, D, thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, B6, folate and B12). DHQs completed by 13 181 Alberta Cohort Study participants aged 35-69 years were analysed to estimate nutrient intakes using the original US and modified versions of the DHQ databases. Misclassification of intake for meeting the Dietary Reference Intake (DRI) was determined following analysis with the US nutrient database. RESULTS: Twenty-five per cent of 2411 foods deemed most likely to differ in nutrient profile were subsequently modified for folate, 11% for vitamin D, 10% for calcium and riboflavin, and between 7 and 10% for the remaining nutrients of interest. Misclassification with respect to meeting the DRI varied but was highest for folate (7%) and vitamin A (7%) among men, and for vitamin D (7%) among women over 50 years of age. CONCLUSIOn: Errors in nutrient intake estimates owing to differences in food fortification between the USA and Canada can be reduced in Canadian populations by using nutrient databases that reflect Canadian fortification practices.     

Genotyping of Mycoplasma gallisepticum and M. synoviae by Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism (AFLP) analysis and digitalized Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD) analysis

Mycoplasma gallisepticum (MG) and M. synoviae (MS) are the cause of considerable economic losses in the poultry industry. Molecular differentiation of avian Mycoplasma strains may be helpful in tracing infections and in the evaluation of implemented intervention strategies. Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism (AFLP) has shown to be a powerful typing technique but the application for poultry Mycoplasma strains is very limited. The aim of this study was to evaluate the reproducibility and discriminatory power of AFLP HindIII/HhaI and AFLP BglII/Mfel for the inter- and intraspecies differentiation of avian mycoplasmas and to compare these test characteristics with digitalized Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD) analysis. The reproducibility of RAPD, AFLP HindIII/HhaI and AFLP BglII/Mfel was 50-100, 97-98 and 86-99%, respectively. RAPD and both AFLP enzyme combinations were able to differentiate between five avian Mycoplasma species. For AFLP, five MG and four MS clusters could be identified. The phylogenetic tree for both enzyme combinations was comparable. For RAPD, four MG clusters could be identified. For MS, however, due to the poor reproducibility of the RAPD technique, no clear genogroups could be identified. On basis of the results of this study it can be concluded that AFLP is a powerful technique for the genotyping of avian mycoplasmas and that, although AFLP HindIII/HhaI generated patterns with less fragments, the final results showed homologous results.     

Pollen characteristics and stigma receptivity for <Emphasis Type="Italic">Anemone coronaria</Emphasis> L.

To obtain crossing products, an efficient pollination and subsequent fertilization is essential. This efficient pollination is achieved by pollen germination and tube growth. Here, these pollen characteristics of 2 genetically differentiating cultivars of Anemone coronaria L. were investigated in vitro. For the essential components boron, calcium and an osmoticant, only calcium showed to be crucial for pollen germination. Boron concentrations influenced the pollen tube length with a concentration of 100 mg l^?1 H₃BO₃ resulting in the longest pollen tubes. For the osmoticant sucrose, a concentration of 100 g l^?1 caused a significant positive effect on both pollen germination and pollen tube length for the 2 cultivars. The cultivars reacted similarly with respect to the investigated compounds. Next to this, the pollen development was correlated with 8 different flower stages in A. coronaria. As a final point, the germination of an optimized pollen germination medium was compared with in vivo pollen germination in cross-pollinations within the same cultivar (identified by aniline blue staining). For ‘Mistral Wine’, pollen germination percentage was lower in vitro than in vivo, while ‘Wicabri Blue’ pollen showed no significant difference in germination rates in vivo and in vitro. To achieve fertilization a following requisite is that the stigma is receptive. To study this, the most receptive female flower stage of the 8 different flower stages for A. coronaria was characterized by aniline blue staining. A. coronaria clearly showed protogyny.     

Report on the 43rd Annual Meeting of the DPG-Working Group Nematology

Journal of Plant Diseases and Protection -     

Production of chips from potato cultivars (Solanum tuberosum L.) with high sugar content using lactic acid fermentation

Summary Tubers of twelve cultivars ofSolanum tuberosum L., with a varying content of reducing sugars (0.49–2.30 g/100 g fresh weight), were sliced and fermented for up to 48 h by lactic acid bacteria in a brine of 1.5% NaCl, prior to frying. The content of reducing sugars decreased by 80 to 100%, depending on the initial sugar level. Colour of chips was measured using the CIE (1976) L^*a^*b^* colour system, where L^* is lightness, a^* is redness and b^* is yellowness of the material and by IBVL colour cards, photographs used for grading the colour of potato chips. L^*-values were the best measurement of chip colour. The scale of the IBVL colour cards was too narrow (scale 1–9) for this study, as chips from eight of the cultivars were scored lighter than IBVL 9 after 48 h of fermentation. Lighter coloured chips significantly correlated with lower contents of reducing sugars. The sugar content decreased as fermentation time increased. Fermentation time can thus be used to control potato chip colour, and all the cultivars tested can be used for production of chips with regard to colour.     

Chlorophyll <Emphasis Type="Italic">a</Emphasis> fluorescence,under half of the adaptive growth-irradiance,for high-throughput sensing of leaf-water deficit in <Emphasis Type="Italic">Arabidopsis thaliana</Emphasis> accessions

Background

Non-invasive and high-throughput monitoring of drought in plants from its initiation to visible symptoms is essential to quest drought tolerant varieties. Among the existing methods, chlorophyll a fluorescence (ChlF) imaging has the potential to probe systematic changes in photosynthetic reactions; however, prerequisite of dark-adaptation limits its use for high-throughput screening.

Results

To improve the throughput monitoring of plants, we have exploited their light-adaptive strategy, and investigated possibilities of measuring ChlF transients under low ambient irradiance. We found that the ChlF transients and associated parameters of two contrasting Arabidopsis thaliana accessions, Rsch and Co, give almost similar information, when measured either after ~20 min dark-adaptation or in the presence of half of the adaptive growth-irradiance. The fluorescence parameters, effective quantum yield of PSII photochemistry (Φ_PSII) and fluorescence decrease ratio (R _FD) resulting from this approach enabled us to differentiate accessions that is often not possible by well-established dark-adapted fluorescence parameter maximum quantum efficiency of PSII photochemistry (F _V/F _M). Further, we screened ChlF transients in rosettes of well-watered and drought-stressed six A. thaliana accessions, under half of the adaptive growth-irradiance, without any prior dark-adaptation. Relative water content (RWC) in leaves was also assayed and compared to the ChlF parameters. As expected, the RWC was significantly different in drought-stressed from that in well-watered plants in all the six investigated accessions on day-10 of induced drought; the maximum reduction in the RWC was obtained for Rsch (16%), whereas the minimum reduction was for Co (~7%). Drought induced changes were reflected in several features of ChlF transients; combinatorial images obtained from pattern recognition algorithms, trained on pixels of image sequence, improved the contrast among drought-stressed accessions, and the derived images were well-correlated with their RWC.

Conclusions

We demonstrate here that ChlF transients and associated parameters measured even in the presence of low ambient irradiance preserved its features comparable to that of measured after dark-adaptation and discriminated the accessions having differential geographical origin; further, in combination with combinatorial image analysis tools, these data may be readily employed for early sensing and mapping effects of drought on plant’s physiology via easy and fully non-invasive means.

     

A QTL atlas for grain yield and its component traits in maize (Zea mays)

Grain yield and its component traits are essential targets in maize breeding. These traits are genetically complex and controlled by a large number of quantitative trait loci (QTL). The aim of this study was to compile reported QTL and major genes for grain yield and its component traits in a QTL atlas, as a valuable resource for the maize community. To this end, 1,177 QTL related to maize yield were collected from 56 studies published between 1992 and 2018. These QTL were projected to genetic map “IBM2 2008 Neighbors”, which led to the identification of 135 meta-QTL. Some genomic regions appear to be hotspots for yield-related meta-QTL, often affecting more than one of the investigated traits. Moreover, we catalogued 20 major maize loci associated with yield and identified 65 maize homologs of 21 rice yield-related genes. Interestingly, we found that a significant proportion of them are located in meta-QTL regions. Collectively, this study provides a reference for QTL fine-mapping and gene cloning, as well as for molecular marker-assisted breeding of yield-related traits in maize.