elham younesi-melerdi

The purpose of present study was to detection and comparison of molecular markers in BOLA gene were between pregnant and non-pregnant Holstein cows. The studied animals included Holstein Friesian cows and did not have any clinical diseases or history of reproductive problems. The number of studied samples included 8 pregnant and 11 non-pregnant cows. The data analyzed in the present research were the result of RNA sequencing. After quality control, the reads were aligned and located against the reference genome and the software provided in two packages, Picardtools and GATK were used to identify the considered variants. The interaction network of studied gene was drawn at the protein level using the STRING database. The results showed that there are 4 different transcripts and a total of 15 SNPs in the BOLA gene in non-pregnant cows compared to pregnant ones, and these polymorphisms were observed in the BOLA gene and its upstream regulatory region which is the binding site of microRNA bta-mir-11979 and specifically, it has only been observed in non-pregnant cows. Among the observed mutations, a mutation at the position of 28723238 base pairs leads to the substitution of adenine with cytosine nucleotide and creating a stop codon in the BOLA protein. No deletion/insertion variants were observed in the studied gene. Considering the missense and nonsense mutations observed in the BOLA gene, which probably leads to fundamental changes in its protein structure, the polymorphisms identified in this research can be used for selection in breeding programs.

The WRKY transcription factors (TFs) family is one of the largest plant-specific TFs families that play a key role in mediating pathways of stress response. In current study, an overview analysis was performed on Arabidopsis WRKY TF family members that their differential expression (DE) under various stresses was reported in GEOprofile database. First, WRKY members with DE were extracted from GEOprofile and information of the data set, sequence and their gene structure were obtained. Then, the concept of the intersection of sets was used to selection some of WRKY TFs for downstream analysis. DE of candidate members was compared by t-test. The protein – protein interaction network were predicted by STRING web server. A total of 16 WRKY genes were identified in the 11 dataset of GEOprofile. The sequence information showed that WRKY75 and WRKY33 have the minimum and maximum length of the amino acid sequence, respectively. Analysis of the gene structure showed that 56% of the studied WRKY genes have 3 exons and all 16 members are distributed in all five chromosomes of Arabidopsis. Also, the results showed that four WRKYs including WRKY40, WRKY46, WRKY18 and WRKY33 were most frequent at response to various stresses. The protein-protein interaction network showed that WRKY40, WRKY46, WRKY18 and WRKY70 have high interaction with four genes of MPK4, ACS6, MKS1 and STZ. Therefore, WRKY40, WRKY46, WRKY18 and WRKY33 can be the most important WRKY TFs of Arabidopsis at response to various stresses and can be used in genetic and metabolic engineering projects.

Although plant breeding has been able to increase rice yield, the quality of cooking and eating quality is still one of the most important economic factors in rice production. In order to better understand the genetic relationships between quantitative and qualitative properties, the most important agronomic traits, physicochemical properties and storage protein characteristics in two new mutant cultivars of rice, their parents and ancestors were evaluated. The results of agronomic traits showed that two mutant cultivars Roshan and Shahriar, have the highest yield (8500 and 8000 kg/ha respectively) accompanied by desirable agronomic characteristics such as lodging resistance, early maturity period, high number of tillers and more panicle length. Evaluation of qualitative properties also showed that these two new mutant cultivars characterized by good cooking and eating properties. As Roshan, show moderate amylose content (AC) and both of them were in terms of gelatinization temperature (GT) and gel consistency (GC) similar to Sangetarom, a quality cultivar. Also, Roshan cultivar, like Sangetarom, was differentiated by the recessive allele of BADH2 gene for fragrance. On the other hand, Shahriar cultivar also showed a significant decrease for prolamin protein. In general, the results show that there is no significant relationship between agronomic characteristics and yield with grain biochemical properties, such as cooking and eating quality, fragrance and storage protein content. These results promise that by identifying and pyramiding desirable alleles, especially alleles involved in starch synthesis, fragrance and prolamin protein can be obtained rice cultivars with higher qualitative properties.

The objective of the present study is to investigate the response of halophyte Aeluropus littoralis to salinity stress. This experiment was conducted in three levels of treatments containing control (without salt), 200 and 400 mM NaCl with three replications for each.  The changes were measured at 6 and 24 h after applying salt treatment. The results showed that the soluble sugar content increased with increasing time and NaCl concentration, So thatو This increase was observed at both treatment after 24h and only at 400 mm after 6h salt stress. Also, The proline content also increased significantly in the both concentrations at the 24 h compared to the 6 h after salt stress. On the other hand, protein content  at 6 h and 200 mM concentration was no significant different, but there was a significant decrease in protein content at 400 Mm treatment at the same time. in contrast, the protein content was significantly decreased both concentrations at 24 h. The results of relative gene expression analysis showed that PYL gene expression was strongly affected by salinity stress and showed a significant decreasing trend (p <0.05). So that, the rate of this reduction at 6 hours is much higher than at 24 hours. ABF gene expression generally showed an increasing trend, which increased significantly in both treatments at 24 h. Therefore, it can be stated that soluble sugars and proline as adaptive compounds in response to salinity stress in Aeluropus littoralis plant and abscisic acid signaling pathway are strongly affected by salinity stress

Plants respond to the destructive effects of salinity through changes in physiological and molecular processes. In the present study, the activity of SOD and APX antioxidant enzymes and changes in the expression of G-types-LecRLK, CIPK20, HSFA1a and C3H-ZF genes, involved in signaling and regulatory networks of Aeluropus littoralis, under salt stress has been investigated. The plant cuttings were cultured hydroponically under controlled conditions. The experimental design was consisted of a control (Hoagland’s solution without NaCl addition) and two treatments (200 and 400 mM NaCl). After 72 h of salt treatment, leaf samples were harvested and H2O2 content, SOD and APX enzymes activity and also changes in gene expression were measured by qRT-PCR. The results showed that the activity of antioxidant enzymes in both 200 and 400 mM NaCl concentration was significantly increased (P<0.05). The lecRLK gene expression was not significantly changed among different treatments. The expression of CIPK20 gene were decreased 7 and 16 folds lower than control at 200 and 400 mM of NaCl treatments, respectively. The obtained results revealed that expression of HSFA1a gene was positively associated with salt concentration (P<0.05). So that, the expression of HSFA1a in 200 and 400 mM NaCl was 11 and 13 folds more than control, respectively. The expression of ZF30 gene was decreased significantly in both 200 and 400 mM NaCl treatments (P<0.05). The results showed that the expression pattern of studied genes is different under salt stress conditions that can be related to the role of each gene, salt concentration and stress duration.

Salt stress is one of the most important abiotic stresses which severly affects agriculture in the world. One of the strategies to deal with this stress is to investigate the mechanisms of tolerance in halophyte plants and to use them for crop improvement. The halophyte plant “Aleuropus littoralis” can tolerate salinity levels up to 600 mM. In this study, in order to investigate the mechanism of the antioxidant response of this plant to salinity stress, one-month seedlings were irrigated with Hoagland solution containing 0, 200 and 400 mM NaCl to induce salt stress. After 72 hours, root, stem and leaf tissues were sampled and the response of each tissue to salinity stress was evaluated. The results were compared using Duncan's multiple range test (p<0.05) after ANOVA. With increasing level of stress, protein content in all three tissues increased significantly. The amount of H2O2 in stem and root decreased with increasing salt concentration, but increased at 200 mM salt concentration. Based on the results, the general pattern of change in the activity of antioxidant enzymes was different in response to salt stress. The activity of superoxide dismutase in all studied tissues increased significantly with increasing stress level, so that the highest activity of the enzyme was observed in stem tissue and at 400 mM salt concentration (3.7 times more than the control). However, the changes in the activity of catalase and guaiacol peroxidase showed a decreasing trend or no significant change, so that the catalase activity in the leaf and at 400 mM salt concentration was almost half of the control and in the root more than half of the control. Finally, with increasing levels of stress, significant increase in ascorbate peroxidase activity was observed in all treatments, except in root tissue and 200 mM salt concentration. In general, according to the results, it can be stated that the balance between the antioxidant defense indices leads to the maintenance of destructive molecules such as H2O2 at a minimal level and plays an effective role in salinity stress tolerance in the A. littoralis.

C4 plants have very high photosynthetic efficiency under drought stress due to lower water usage and do not require the opening and closing of stomata. This advantage has been created by complementary mechanisms of primary carboxylation in leaves mesophilic cells. In species which are initial carboxylation of mesophilic CO2 during C4 photosynthesis and crassulacean acid metabolism done, the PEPc enzyme catalyses the irreversible reaction of phosphoenolpyruvate in the presence of bicarbonate ions to produce oxaloacetate. The aim of the present study was to partial isolation of pepc coding sequence from halophytic grass Aeluropus littoralis, studying codon bias pattern and also quantitative analysis of its expression in 0 (control) and 600 mM NaCl relative to beta actin gene expression as internal control using Real-time PCR. As a result, a 678 bp fragment of pepc gene coding sequence was isolated and registered in NCBI gene bank under KP122945 accession number. The isolated fragment showed highest homology (in protein level) with Eragrostis minor and Zoysia japonica species and its CAI index was estimated 0.82. Finally, the quantitative analysis of gene expression under 600 mM salt stress showed that the level of pepc gene transcription was increased about 3 times (compared to control) in response to stress.

Codon bias refers to the differences in the frequency of occurrence of synonymous codons in coding DNA. Pattern of codon and optimum codon utilization is significantly different between the lives. This difference is due to the long term function of natural selection and evolution process. Genetics drift, mutation and regulation of gene expression are the main reasons for codon bias. In this study, the codon bias analysis was done on photosynthesis and respiratory related genes of phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase (PEPC), NADP-malic enzyme (NADP-ME), pyruvate orthophosphate dikinase (PPDK), glycerate kinase (GK) (nuclear genes), rubisco, NADH-dehydrogenase subunit F and cytochrome-C (chloroplast genes) from Aeluropus littoralis plant. Nuclear gene sequences were obtained after partial isolation and for chloroplast genes obtained from nucleotide database. Calculation of codon adaptation index (CAI) showed that studied genes with direct or indirect association with photosynthesis, had high level of gene expression and had also a tendency to optimum codon utilization. The results also showed the difference in codon bias between genes encoded in nucleus and chloroplast for some amino acids.