Agricultural Biotechnology Journal
Year:2016 | Volume:7 | Issue:4|Papers Count:11

Scrophularia desertiis an important medicinal plant belonging to the Scrophulariaceae family. Research has demonstrated that extracts of the plant have antidiabetic and anticancer effects. This species is a valuable source of biologically active compounds, specially iridoid glycosides and flavonoids. Hairy root system can be used for thein vitro production of pharmaceutically valuable compounds. In this research, transgenic hairy root induction was established through the mediation of the A13 strain ofAgrobacterium rhizogenes. The effects of various explants (seedling without radicle, cotyledon and leaf) prepared fromin vitro grown plants at different ages (10, 18, 25, 50 and 72-day old) and three different inoculation times (5, 15 and 30 min) on the efficiency of hairy root induction were investigated. The maximum hairy roots (22.33 roots per explant) induced from 18-day-old seedlings explants inoculated with bacterial suspension for 5 min. The transgenic status of hairy roots was confirmed by PCR usingrol A and rol B genes-specific primers. Four different culture media (MS, half strength MS, B5 and PGR oB R) were used to determine the best suitable media composition for the optimum cell growth of two hairy root lines (G and H). The results revealed that MS medium was superior for growth and high biomass production of hairy roots. Hairy root line H showed maximum biomass production (16.33 mg/30 ml culture medium, in terms of fresh weight) after 4 weeks of culture. Hairy root lines developed in this study can be used to investigate the production of pharmaceutically important metabolites of S.deserti.

Wheat is one of the most important cereals that supply needs of the human food in all countries. Fusarium head blight (FHB), caused primarily byFusarium graminearum is one of the most destructive diseases of wheat that produces the mycotoxin deoxynivalenol (DON), a protein synthesis inhibitor which is harmful to human and livestock. Chemical modification in DON structure could reduce DON accumulation in the grain. AYT1 gene, encoding an acetyltransferase enzyme plays a major role in reducing the toxicity of DON. In this study, we used molecular techniques such as PCR, RT-PCR and southern blotting to confirm the insertion and proper expression of this transgene in the second generation of transgenic wheat plants. Obtained results showed the presence of Ayt1 gene in most of the evaluated transformed plants, and transgene expression was confirmed by RT-PCR. Moreover, southern blot analysis for evaluation of transgene copy number showed more than one copy in some of the transgenic lines.

Flowers of Gladiolus sp. are among the top six flowers of export value and in Iran take the second place in the production of cut flowers. Cucumber mosaic virus is one of the most common viruses in gladiolus worldwide. As, the gladioli are propagated through corms, therefore viral diseases could be easily transmitted to the next generation. To produce healthy stock plants, it is important to produce and culture virus-free corms. In the present research, thermotherapy along with meristem culture, electrotherapy along with meristem culture and meristem culture alone were employed to eliminate CMV from infected gladiolus plants. CMV detection using DAS-ELISA showed that 73 percent of the regenerated plants were free of viruses whereas, RT-PCR analysis showed that 42 percent of plants were virus-free. The efficiency of virus elimination from thermo-treated meristems culture with size 0.5 were 100%. This is the first report of application of electrotherapy for CMV elimination from gladiolus plants and the best results were obtained by using 15 milliamps for 15 minutes. The results showed that thermotherapy along with meristem culture was a more efficient method for elimination of CMV from infected gladiolus plants.

Microsatellite genotyping can always be prone to genotyping errors which significantly affect the entire subsequent analysis. One of the new approaches to overcome this problem is an alternative method of using a clustering system of genotypes based on microsatellite motif length and allelic frequencies range instead of individual genotypes. The objective of the present study was to establish an association of 13 microsatellite markers, classified into three new groups based on allele size consisting homozygous for the short allele, homozygous for the long allele and the class of heterozygous for long and short alleles, with body weight and Keliber ratio in commercial Boer goats. The results after considering the fixed effects, revealed that the class of heterozygous for long and short alleles of TEXAN006 and CSSM32 loci were significantly associated with kids birth weight (P<0.05). The highest weaning weight was observed in individuals homozygous for long alleles at the BMC1009 locus (P<0.05). The BM4307, BM4621 and UWCA46 loci were also shown an association with average daily gain (P<0.05). In conclusion, the results showed that the use of motif length in the genotyping of microsatellite markers instead of genotype of each locus can minimize the genotyping errors and cause the higher probability to get a significant association with economically important traits.

Plant diseases are one of the major constraints of agricultural productions. Rice bacterial brown stripe, caused by Acidovorax avenae subsp. avenae is recognized by producing watersoaked and brown stripes on leaves and sheaths of rice seedlings in nursery. Plants have several acquired defense mechanisms to deal with pests and pathogens. The rice plant resistance genes (R genes), such as pathogenesis related proteins play an important role in rice-pathogen interactions. This research aimed to study the role of PR2 and PAL pathogenesis related genes in local Tarom and Sahel Rice cultivars inoculated with an incompatible strain of bacterial brown stripe using the Quantitative Real-time PCR technique. Sampling of leaves inoculated with bacterial suspensions was performed at different time courses. Total RNA extracted from samples then complementary DNA (cDNA) synthesized and target genes expression level were evaluated. The results of this study showed that the expression level of PR2 and PAL genes has greatly increased in Sahel resistant cultivar in comparison to Tarom susceptible cultivar. Increased expression level of the aforesaid genes, proves the role of these genes in resistance of rice plants against bacterial brown stripe disease.

Insulin-like growth factor is a single-chain polypeptide. The Molecular weight of it is 7.5 KDa. This factor is insulin like activity and the most important growth factor in the body and plays important role in the proliferation, differentiation and cells growth. IGF1 gene located on chromosome 3 in sheep. This gene i s more proposed as a candida gene for growth and meat quality traits in animal genetic improvement programs. The aim of this research is to find Polymorphisms in the third exon. In this research blood samples of breeds of 25 sheep include Mehraban, Karakul, Ghezel, Lak Ghashghaei and Bahmaei were collected with EDTA tube. The DNA was extracted from blood samples and the third exon region wa s amplified with specific primers using PCR and sequencing. The results showed, there is 2 SNP in intron 2 and 3. Protein structure of IGF1 gene is investigated by using Swiss-pdb viewer software. Protein structure analysis showed that this protein is highly conserved of e volution. This protein has a structure consisting of an alpha helix with irregular structure.

Contamination of ecosystems upon excessive use of pesticides and emergence of resistance in pathogens to these chemicals makes continuous research on development of new control methods and strategies to combat plant pathogens an essential task. Plant disease resistant genes are useful genetic resources that can be employed to develop resistant varieties as the best alternative to other control measures. The present investigation was carried out to analyze the interaction of two major rice cultivars grown in Northern provinces, withRhizoctonia solani, the causative agent of rice sheath blight disease. Binam and Khazar known as the resistant and susceptible cultivars, respectively, were inoculated and their reaction to R. solani determined. The lesions in the sheath of the susceptible cultivar were twice in length compared to those on the resistant cultivar. Analysis of data by the Student’s T test showed existence of significant difference (P value<0.05) between the two cultivars. To determine the expression profile of the genes involved in resistance to R. solani, samples were taken from leaves of two weeks old seedlings in different time courses post inoculation. RNA was extracted from the samples and analyzed by quantitative real time PCR. Results of the present study indicated that expression rates of PR-5, Proxidase, PR-10, Defensin, Thionin, and NH-1 in resistant genotype (Binam) increased greatly after inoculation with R. solani when compared to Khazar cultivar. The outcomes of this study also suggest that the genes under study are involved in resistance mechanisms of rice against sheath blight disease.

Fennels have long been cultivated as an aromatic and medicinal plant in different regions with different climate in Iran. In this study, the genetic diversity of 32 ecotypes of fennel was assessed by RAPD and ISSR markers. A total of 106 and 72 polymorphic fragments were amplified by RAPD and ISSR markers, respectively. Based on RAPD data, mean genetic diversity were 0.3739 and 0.552 by Nei (h) and Shannon's information index (I), respectively. Moreover, mean genetic diversity for ISSR marker were accordingly 0.2944 and 0.4563. The obtained average polymorphism content (PIC) by RAPD and ISSR markers were 0.4274 and 0.2192, respectively. Based on cluster analysis of RAPD and ISSR markers, the ecotypes were grouped in 7 and 11 clusters. These results indicate that the Iranian fennels have high genetic diversity, and RAPD and ISSR markers very well2T differentiated 2T fennel genotypes based on the geographical distribution and climatic similarities. Understanding the genetic diversity can further help breeders in their breeding programs, especially in hybridization breeding, evolutionary and classifications studies.

In this research, genetic variation among 22 grapevine cultivars of Shahrood region and 3 cultivars from Sisakht city were evaluated using 6 ISSR primers. The used primers produced totally 69 bands, which 65 bands showed polymorphism among evaluated cultivars. Primers UBC825 with 16 bands and UBC857 with 6 bands produced the highest and lowest numbers of polymorphic bands, respectively. Polymorphism percentage using these markers was 94.1%. Mean of expected heterozygosis (He) and mean of Shannon index were 0.37 and 0.54, respectively. The highest (0.61) and lowest (0.48) amount of Shannon index was belong to the primers UBC 825 and UBC849, respectively. Also primer UBC825 showed the highest amount of the expected heterozygosity (0.42), highest number of effective allele (1.75) and highest number of different alleles (2). Cluster analysis using Jaccard similarity coefficients and UPGMA algorithm put the 25 studied cultivars in three different groups. The results of this study showed that ISSR markers can be used as effective tools to evaluate the genetic variation and to accelerate grapevine breeding programs.

Indigenous races in each country are as a national capital and strategic product in the economy and prosperity of the country that maintenance of these races are very valuable.Due to the importance of maintaining diversity and identification of genetic resources in indigenous breeds, five breeds of Iranian sheep population (Arabi, Arman, Dalagh, Karakul and Lory) using four microsatellite markers (McMA2, McMA26, OarHH35 and BM6444) was evaluated in terms of genetic diversity.0T 0T Genomic DNA was extracted from 225 blood samples by0T 0T optimized salting-out DNA extraction procedure. The PCR reactions were successfully performed with all primers. The results showed that all loci were quite polymorph. Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium test using chi-square test showed that some various combinations of loci-population were in a state of Hardy-Weinberg disequilibrium (P<0.05).The highest number of alleles was observed in loci of McMA2, McMA26 and OarHH35 of Dalagh, Arabic, Lory and Karakul populations respectively (12 alleles) and the lowest number of alleles for OarHH35 in Dalagh population. The maximum expected heterozygosity in combination locus-population of loci McMA2, McMA26, OarHH35, BM6444 were 0.885, 0.9, 0.88 and 0.87 respectively. With respect to the studied loci, it is concluded that all studied sheep populations have wide genetic diversity.