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Camelina sativa (L.) Crantz is an annual flowering plant that belongs to the Brassicaceae family. C. sativa as a dicotyledonous plant, one of its characteristics is morphological formability to respond to large environmental changes. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of ethyl methylsulfonate on germination and morphological traits of C. saiva. Ethyl methanesulfonate (EMS) is one of the most potent mutagenic and carcinogenic compounds that cause point-substitution-mutation in the genome. To induce mutations in this experiment, ethyl methanesulfonate with concentrations of 0.1% and 0.5% was used in two periods of 8 and 16 hours on 200 seeds of Camelina. The results of variance analysis for plant heights, number of leaves per sub-branch, number of seeds per pod, number of main branch leaves, stem diameter, and pod length did not show the significant difference, but the only significant difference was for the trait of pod width. Also, results showed that there was a significant difference between the tested treatments in terms of germination percentage, longest root length, mean root length, mean shoot length, seedling fresh weight, and seedling dry weight. According to the results of germination experiments, EMS treatment widely affected all six studied traits, therefore, the amounts of the largest root length and shoot length decreased with increasing EMS concentration, but this relationship was not observed in other traits. Although EMS is classified as toxic, for germination percentage, it was observed that with increasing concentration and time of EMS treatment, germination percentage also increased. According to the correlation results, all traits had a positive and significant relationship with each other, which is probably due to the nature of the traits and their additive effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Breast cancer is one of the important causes of mortality among women. Many studies have focused on the development of natural health products for prevention and treatment of breast cancer. This study investigated the effects of Bifidobacterium bifidum and its microvesicles (MVs) on 4T1-induced breast cancer in BALB/c mice. Methods: Sixty female BALB/c mice were divided into 5 groups: (1) negative control, (2) positive control, (3) doxorubicin, (4) probiotic and (5) MVs (isolated from B. bifidum). The mice in groups 4 and 5 were pretreated with B. bifidum and MVs for 4 weeks, respectively. Tumor was induced by subcutaneous administration of 4T1 cell culture. After tumor development, mice in group 3 were treated with doxorubicin while other groups were treated as before. The mice were sacrificed after 3 weeks, breast tumors were removed and histologically examined. Also, P53 and Ki67 protein were evaluated by immunohistochemistry staining, and P53 gene expression was assessed by RT-PCR. Results: Pretreatment with MVs and probiotic reduced mortality and tumor growth rate. MVs and Probiotic prevented the weight loss and suppressed tumor cell proliferation which was indicated by Ki-67 and p53. The expression of p53 confirmed these results. Despite the malignancy in the breast tissue, necrosis of cancer cells occurred in the mice treated with MVs. Conclusion: MVs of B. bifidum effectively inhibited breast cancer development in mice and suppressed tumor cell proliferation. Probiotic microorganisms and their metabolites can be used as a functional food to prevent breast cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]