Crop Biotechnology
Year:2015 | Volume:4 | Issue:9|Papers Count:4

Seed germination (capacity, time, and synchronization) is a manifest characteristic of the standard germination test of a cultivated variety. In order to identify genomic regions associated with seed germination, 149 bread wheat recombinant inbred lines and their parents RojoYecora and No. 49 were conducted in an alpha lattice design with two replications at the University of Mahabad during 2013-14, under normal and moisture stress conditions. Different traits including index of germination speed, final germination percentage, germination speed, germination rate, and average daily germination were measured. In this study, 340 pairs of microsatellite primers were used to determine the parental polymorphism. Furthermore, 7 retro transposon-based markers on LTR regions of barely retro transposons, and their twenty-eight combinations at IRAP technique, as well as, 63 combination of this primer with anchored ISSR primers at REMAP technique were used for population screening. QTL analysis using composite interval mapping (CIM) for each trait in each environment and mean of two environments were accomplished. For all studied traits, transgressive segregation was observed. In general, eleven QTLs were detected for all traits. Total phenotypic variance explained by these QTLs varied from 11.82 to 21.42 percent. The highest LOD value for QTL controlling germination speed (LOD=6.65) was obtained on chromosome 4BQSg-Normal. The results revealed that QTLs of index of germination rate and germination speed related to the quantity and quality of seed germination had desirable performance in all three environments. However, detected stable and cluster QTLs may be used in marker assisted selection (MAS) programs.

Since the economic value of cultivars depends on different characteristics, thus procedure of selection for several traits to maximizing the economic value always has been considered by plant breeders. Detailed knowledge on genetic behavior and association between economic traits will help breeders to improve plant populations. In this study, 12 retro transposons-based primers (7 IRAP and 5 REMAP primers) and general and mixed linear models (GLM and MLM) were used to identify molecular markers associated to 9 seed related important traits including oil yield, oil percentage, protein yield, protein percentage, grain length, grain diameter, grain weight, de hulled kernel weight, percentage of de hulled kernel weight to whole grain in 48 confectionery sunflower landraces under normal irrigation, mild and severe drought stress conditions. By applying Bayesian model, the whole confectionery sunflower populations were classified into two sub-populations. Based on general linear model, 2, 5 and 12 loci and through mixed linear model 2, 5 and 11 loci showed significant (P<0.01) association with investigated traits under normal irrigation, mild and severe drought stress conditions, respectively. U81-U82 marker was commonly identified for oil yield, achen length and protein yield under severe drought stress conditions. Common markers between some of studied traits can be due to linkage or pleiotropic effects. The common markers lead to increase the efficiency of marker-assisted selection in plant breeding programs via simultaneously selection for several traits.

In most transformation studies it has been indicated that adding proline to the tissue culture medium can increase the callus induction frequency and reduce induction time. Adding proline to callus induction medium in this phase can affect the production of aromatic compounds in rice and if the goal of exogenous gene transformation is increasing the rice aromatic associated secondary metabolites such as 2- acetyl-1-pyrroline (2AP), this amino acid can slipup the final results. Although, absence of amino acids such as proline can reduce callus induction percentage. In this research, callus induction from two indica rice varieties; Ambemohar 157 and Indrayani were optimized, using MS medium having various concentrations of 2,4-D, without using proline. The results revealed that 2.5 mgl-1 of 2,4-D for Ambemohar 157 and 4 mgl-1 for Indrayani can lead to better callus induction. These results indicated that absence of proline can be disregard by increasing of 2,4-D concentrations. Calluses obtained from the best hormone treatment were cultured on MS fortified with 0.01 mgl-1 NAA + (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) mgl-1 BAP for shoot regeneration. The highest percentage of regeneration was achieved on MS supplemented with 2 mgl-1and 3 mgl-1 for Ambemohar157 and Indrayani cultivar respectively. Proline contents in calli which were growth in MS medium supplemented with 500 mg/L of proline showed approximately 12 to 14 fold increase over the calli growth in non-proline added medium.

Incidence of resistance against antimicrobial drugs has led to the use of medicinal plants for treatment of infections. However, excessive harvesting of medicinal plants has led researchers to investigate the production of antibacterial compounds under in-vitro conditions. In this study, the inhibitory effects of different dilutions of aqueous, ethanol, methanol and ether extracts from callus, cell suspension cultures and seed of black zira were tested on microorganisms Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus subtilis, Pseudomonas aeroginosa, Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Aspergill us parasitic us and Candida albicans. The results showed that although different extracts showed strong antibacterial activity, there is significant difference between various dilutions of extracts. The difference in antibacterial effect of extracts is related to different solubility power of solvents for volatile compounds extraction. Also increasing the concentration of the extracts, increased their inhibitory effect as evidenced by the fact that the greatest inhibitory effect was seen when no dilution of the extract was carried out. Also antimicrobial effects of callus and cell extracts of black zira against microorganisms were higher than seed extracts. Investigation of extract components by TLC showed that the Scopoletin has antimicrobial activity and there is the high amount of it in the cells suspension culture and callus of black zira. Therefore it could be concluded that antimicrobial property of cells and callus extracts, despite low concentration of Cumin aldehyde, could be due to the high amount of Scopoletin. Thus the application of cell culture strategies for production of antibacterial compounds, as Scopoletin, is a favorable technology and such compounds could be suitable replacements for the usual chemical drugs.