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Soil acidity is one of the main factors limiting agricultural production due to high aluminum (Al(3+)) saturation in soil. Campomanesia pubescens (Mart. ex DC.) O. Berg, popularly known as “gabiroba”, is a species of Myrtaceae family and typical of Brazilian Cerrado. The aim of this study was to evaluate the root growth and anatomical structure of C. pubescens roots, subjected to different concentrations of Al(3+), grown in a simple and complete solution as culture form. This experiment was performed with seedlings cultivated hydroponically using a simple and complete solution. The simple nutrient solution was carried out using 0.1 mM of Ca (CaCl(2).2H(2)O) and five concentrations of Al in the form of Al(2)(SO(4))3.18H(2)O, while the complete nutrient solution of low ionic strength was conducted using 0.5 mM of N (NH(4)NO(3)), 0.2 mM of Ca (CaCl(2).H(2)O), 0.2 mM of Mg (MgSO(4).7H(2)O), 0.5 mM of K (K(2)SO(4)), 0.1 mM of P (NaH(2)PO(4).2H(2)O), 10 μM of Fe (FeNa) EDTA, 0.4 μM of Mn (MnSO(4).H(2)O), 0.16 μM of Zn (ZnSO(4)), 0.04 μM of Cu (CuSO(4)), 0.5 μM of Mo (MoO(3)), and 0.04 μM of Co (CoSO(4).7H(2)O).The experiment was a factorial design (2×5) with two nutrient solutions (single and complete) and five aluminum concentrations (0, 150, 300, 600 and 1200 μmol L-1). It was observed that both in simple and complete nutrient solution the rate of root elongation and root growth decreased with increasing Al(3+) concentration. At the concentration of 300 μmol L-1, were observed cellular disorganization and rupture of the epidermis. The presence of aluminum inside the vascular cells may indicate some mechanism of transport to other parts of the plant. It was concluded that Campomanesia pubescens showed sensitivity towards high Al(3+) concentrations, indicating that the establishment of these plants can be compromised in acidic soils with toxic concentrations of Al(3+).

We assessed the transferability of 120 EST-derived Eucalyptus microsatellite primers to Campomanesia adamantium and C. pubescens. Both species are berry trees native to the Brazilian Cerrado, and population genetic information is poor. Twelve markers were used to analyze the genetic variability of four sampled populations. Regarding DNA extraction, we sampled leaf tissues from two populations of each species (80 individuals). Of the 120 primers evaluated, 87 did not amplify any PCR products, and 21 rendered nonspecific amplification. Twelve primers were successfully transferred, providing a low combined probability of genetic identity for both species (5.718 x 10(-10) for C. adamantium; 1.182 x 10(-11) for C. pubescens) and a high probability of paternity exclusion (0.99939 for C. adamantium; 0.99982 for C. pubescens). The average number of alleles in the polymorphic loci was 6.8 for C. adamantium and 7.8 for C. pubescens, ranging from 2 to 16 alleles per locus. The observed heterozygosity values for C. adamantium and C. pubescens were 0.504 and 0.503, respectively, and the expected heterozygosity values for C. adamantium and C. pubescens were 0.517 and 0.579, respectively. The populations exhibited structured genetic variability with qP values of 0.105 for C. adamantium and 0.249 for C. pubescens. Thus, we concluded that these 12 microsatellite markers, transferred from Eucalyptus, were efficient for population genetic studies of C. adamantium and C. pubescens.

Embrapa Cerrados has been working on mango breeding program through intervarietal hybridization using cultivars from India, South Africa, Nigeria, Mexico, USA and Brazil since 1983. The objective of this work was to evaluate the genetic variability of 28 mango cultivars of the parental group used in the Embrapa Cerrados breeding program. The genomic DNA of each cultivar was extracted and amplified using 21 decamer primers to obtain RAPD molecular markers. These markers were transformed into a binary matrix data to estimate genetic distances among cultivars and to perform cluster analysis. From the 350 molecular markers obtained, 16.3% were monomorphic. The genetic distances among the 28 cultivars ranged from 0.098 and 0.331. The lowest genetic distances were detected between the cultivars 'Edward' and 'Glenn' (0.098), 'Tommy Atkins' and 'Keitt' (0.101), as well as 'Apple' and 'Malindi' (0.112). There is high genetic variability among mango cultivars from different countries, including the Brazilian ones. There was a grouping tendency of the important cultivars from USA. These results emphasize the importance of the cultivars used in the Embrapa Cerrados breeding program and provide useful information for future mango breeding activities.

Recurrent aphthous ulceration (RAU) is considered to be an acute inflammatory disease of unknown pathogenesis. Apoptosis may represent an important event in the control of inflammation.The aim of this study was to investigate apoptosis process in RAU using immunohistochemistry.We studied the expression and location of p53, bcl-2 and bax in ulcerated lesions clinically diagnosed as RAU (n = 12) and compared it with that of oral clinically normal mucosa (n = 6) and of other inflammatory chronic disease such as oral fibrous inflammatory hyperplasia (FIH; n = 18).Significant statistically differences (n0.05) in p53 expression were noticed in RAU when compared with normal mucosa. No significant statistically differences (P0.05) were noticed between FIH and RAU. Bcl-2 and bax did not show remarkable differences between groups.Taken together, the data suggest that RAU induces p53 immunoexpression. Therefore, the protein might be related to the aetiopathogenesis of the ulcerated oral lesions.