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Simple Summary: Canola is the largest self-produced vegetable oil source in China; however, excessive levels of cadmium, lead, and arsenic seriously affect its yield. In this study, canola near-isogenic lines with different oil contents (F338 (40.62%) and F335 (46.68%) as the control) were used as the experimental materials, and heavy metal stress experiments and omics analysis were carried out. The results show that superoxide dismutase and SAUR36 were closely related to heavy metal stress tolerance. Therefore, they may be used to screen for new canola materials with good heavy metal stress tolerance for canola breeding. Canola is the largest self-produced vegetable oil source in China, although excessive levels of cadmium, lead, and arsenic seriously affect its yield. Therefore, developing methods to identify canola materials with good heavy metal tolerance is a hot topic for canola breeding. In this study, canola near-isogenic lines with different oil contents (F338 (40.62%) and F335 (46.68%) as the control) and heavy metal tolerances were used as raw materials. In an experiment with 100 times the safe standard values, the superoxide dismutase (SOD) and peroxidase (POD) activities of F335 were 32.02 mmol/mg and 71.84 mmol/mg, while the activities of F338 were 24.85 mmol/mg and 63.86 mmol/mg, exhibiting significant differences. The DEGs and DAPs in the MAPK signaling pathway of the plant hormone signal transduction pathway and other related pathways were analyzed and verified using RT-qPCR. SAUR36 and SAUR32 were identified as the key differential genes. The expression of the SAUR36 gene in canola materials planted in the experimental field was significantly higher than in the control, and FY958 exhibited the largest difference (27.82 times). In this study, SOD and SAUR36 were found to be closely related to heavy metal stress tolerance. Therefore, they may be used to screen for new canola materials with good heavy metal stress tolerance for canola breeding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Weed infestation has seriously affected the yield and quality of rapeseed, which is a globally significant oil crop. While the application of chemical herbicides in agriculture has greatly boosted agricultural efficiency and crop yield, it has also unfortunately led to escalating environmental pollution and the emergence of herbicide-resistant weeds. The ptxD gene, originating from bacteria, encodes the phosphite dehydrogenase enzyme that is responsible for converting phosphite (Phi) into orthophosphate (Pi). Phi remains unusable by plants and most microorganisms, but upon its conversion into Pi, it becomes a viable nutrient source for plants. This unique function of the ptxD gene offers promising avenues for the development of innovative weed control technologies. We tested the Phi tolerance of weeds and ptxD-expressing rapeseed (Brassica napus) through greenhouse experiments in rapeseed fields. The results revealed that a Phi concentration of 200 mg·kg of soil−1 inhibited the growth of all weeds in the rapeseed fields, while the ptxD-expressing rapeseed exhibited robust tolerance to this concentration of Phi. In field experiments, the application of 60 g·m−2 of Phi allowed the ptxD-expressing rapeseed to grow normally, while the weeds grew slowly due to phosphorus deficiency, resulting in the rapeseed having a strong competitive advantage over the weeds. The leaves of the transgenic rapeseed plants covered gaps in the field as they grew, further inhibiting weed growth and completely eliminating their harm due to shading effects. The combination of ptxD-expressing rapeseed and the application of phosphite offers a sustainable alternative to herbicides for weed management in rapeseed fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In southern China, the fresh shoots of rape are used as a high-quality seasonal vegetable owing to their pleasant taste. In this study, we investigated the taste and quality of fresh shoots of Fanmingyoutai, which was derived from WH23 by 60Co mutation. WH23 was used as a control (CK). Physiological indexes, transcriptome analyses, and metabolomics analyses between Fanmingyoutai and CK were studied and the related key differential genes were identified. The results showed that the glucosinolate content of Fanmingyoutai seeds was 51.14% lower than that of CK, and the contents of soluble sugar and vitamin C in the fresh shoots of Fanmingyoutai were 2.1 times and 1.4 times higher, respectively, than CK. Using transcriptome analyses, we identified that the differential genes were involved in glycan biosynthesis and metabolism, energy metabolism, carbohydrate metabolism, and the metabolism of cofactors and vitamins. Metabolomics analyses demonstrated that the contents of sucrose and D-fructose in the fresh shoots of Fanmingyoutai were 1.22 times and 1.15 times higher, respectively, than those in CK. Using qRT-PCR analyses, the expression of SWEET17, STP5, and GSL in the fresh shoots and leaves of Fanmingyoutai was two times higher than that in CK. SWEET17 (involved in sugar production and transport), STP5 (involved in monosaccharide transport), and GSL (involved in glucosinolate accumulation) may be the key functional genes. We concluded that the low glucosinolate content and high sucrose and D-fructose contents may be the main factors affecting the taste of fresh shoots of Fanmingyoutai and CK; SWEET17, STP5, and GSL may be the key related genes. This research provides a reference for the breeding and molecular mechanisms of new edible rape varieties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the prediction of a nonlinear time series based on a leaky integrator echo state network (leaky-ESN), building a reservoir related to the specific problem is a key step. For problems such as poor performance of randomly generated reservoirs, it is tough to determine the parameter values of the reservoirs. The work in this paper uses the gravitational search algorithm (GSA) to optimize the global parameters of a leaky-ESN, such as the leaking rate, the spectral radius, and the input scaling factor. The basic GSA has some problems, such as slow convergence and poor balance between exploration and exploitation, and it cannot solve some complex optimization problems well. To solve these problems, an improved gravitational search algorithm (IGSA) is proposed in this paper. First, the best agent and elite agents were archived and utilized to accelerate the exploration phase and improve the convergence rate in the exploitation phase. Second, to improve the effect of the poor fitness agents on the optimization result, a differential mutation strategy was proposed, which generated new individuals to replace original agents with worse fitness, increasing the diversity of the population and improving the global optimization ability of the algorithm. Finally, two simulation experiments showed that the leaky-ESN optimized by the IGSA had better prediction accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: The quality of rapeseed (Brassica napus) oil depends mainly on the degree of hydrocarbon chain saturation of fatty acids. In previous studies, seeds of the B. napus near-isogenic lines were used as raw materials by iTRAQ analysis at 20–35 days after pollination, and three differential proteins related to oleic acid metabolisms were found to be related to acetylation modification. Thus, we analyzed lysine acetylation using the same raw materials. The function of the corresponding genes of fatty acid metabolisms-related differential proteins was verified by identifying the overexpression of BnACP363K, BnACP363R, and BnACP363 in Arabidopsis thaliana. The results show that the acetylation modification of BnaACP3 may have a selective effect on oleic acid and slow down the conversion of oleic acid to linoleic acid. This is the first report of oleic acid synthesis regulation by acetylation. In this study, lysine acetylation analysis was conducted using two Brassica napus near-isogenic lines, HOCR and LOCR, containing high and low oleic acid contents, respectively, to explore this relationship. Proteins showing differences in quantitative information between the B. napus lines were identified in lysine acetylation analysis, and KEGG pathways were analyzed, yielding 45 enriched proteins, most of which are involved in carbon fixation in photosynthetic organisms, photosynthesis, ascorbate and aldarate metabolism, and glycolysis. Potential key genes related to fatty acid metabolisms were determined. To further explore the effect of acetylation modification on fatty acid metabolisms, the acyl-ACP3 related gene BnaACP363K was cloned, and a base mutation at No.63 was changed via overlapping primer PCR method. This study is the first to demonstrate that acetylation modification can regulate oleic acid metabolisms, which provides a promising approach for the study of the molecular mechanism of oleic acid in rapeseed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A cut-edge detection method based on machine vision was developed for obtaining the navigation path of a combine harvester. First, the Cr component in the YCbCr color model was selected as the grayscale feature factor. Then, by detecting the end of the crop row, judging the target demarcation and getting the feature points, the region of interest (ROI) was automatically gained. Subsequently, the vertical projection was applied to reduce the noise. All the points in the ROI were calculated, and a dividing point was found in each row. The hierarchical clustering method was used to extract the outliers. At last, the polynomial fitting method was used to acquire the straight or curved cut-edge. The results gained from the samples showed that the average error for locating the cut-edge was 2.84 cm. The method was capable of providing support for the automatic navigation of a combine harvester. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]