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Salinity and drought are the major abiotic stresses that disturb several aspects of maize plants growth at the cellular level, one of these aspects is cell cycle machinery. In our study, we dissected the molecular alterations and downstream effectors of salinity and drought stress on cell cycle regulation and chromatin remodeling. Effects of salinity and drought stress were determined on maize seedlings using 200 mM NaCl (induced salinity stress), and 250 mM mannitol (induced drought stress) treatments, then cell cycle progression and chromatin remodeling dynamics were investigated. Seedlings displayed severe growth defects, including inhibition of root growth. Interestingly, stress treatments induced cell cycle arrest in S-phase with extensive depletion of cyclins B1 and A1. Further investigation of gene expression profiles of cell cycle regulators showed the downregulation of the CDKA, CDKB, CYCA, and CYCB. These results reveal the direct link between salinity and drought stress and cell cycle deregulation leading to a low cell proliferation rate. Moreover, abiotic stress alters chromatin remodeling dynamic in a way that directs the cell cycle arrest. We observed low DNA methylation patterns accompanied by dynamic histone modifications that favor chromatin decondensation. Also, the high expression of DNA topoisomerase 2, 6 family was detected as consequence of DNA damage. In conclusion, in response to salinity and drought stress, maize seedlings exhibit modulation of cell cycle progression, resulting in the cell cycle arrest through chromatin remodeling.

39 p.-7 fig.-2 tab.-9 tab. supl., Microgreens are rich functional crops with valuable nutritional elements that have health benefits when used as food supplements. Growth characterization,nutritional composition profile of 21 varieties representing five species of the Brassica genus asmicrogreens were assessed under light-emitting diodes(LEDs) conditions. Microgreens were grown under four different LEDs ratios(%); red:blue 80:20 and 20:80 (R80:B20 and R20:B80), or red:green:blue 70:10:20 and 20:10:70 (R70:G10:B20 and R20:G10:B70). Results indicated that supplemental lighting with green LEDs (R70:G10:B20) enhanced vegetative growth and morphology, while blue LEDs (R20:B80) increased the mineral and vitamin contents. Interestingly, by linking the nutritional content with the growth yield to define the optimal LEDs setup, we found that the best lighting to promote the microgreen growth was the green LEDs combination (R70:G10:B20). Remarkably, under the green LEDs combination (R70:G10:B20) conditions,the microgreens of Kohlrabi purple, Cabbage red, Broccoli, Kale Tucsan, Komatsuna red, Tatsoi and Cabbage green, which can benefit human health in conditions with limited food, had the highest growth and nutritional content., This research work is a part of a project received seed funding from the Dubai Future Foundation through the Guaana.com open research platform(grant no. MBR026). Dr. Mortaza is supported from ERDF project “Plants as a tool from sustainable global development” No. CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_019/0000827.

Pistachio is one of the most commercially important nut trees in the world. To characterize the genetic controls of horticultural traits and facilitate marker-assisted breeding in pistachio, we constructed an SSR-based linkage map using an interspecific F1 population derived from a cross between the cultivar “Siirt” (Pistacia vera L.) and the monoecious Pa-18 genotype of Pistacia atlantica Desf. This population was also used for the first QTL analysis in pistachio on leaf and shoot characters. In total, 1312 SSR primers were screened, and 388 loci were successfully integrated into parental linkage maps. The Siirt maternal map contained 306 markers, while the “Pa-18” paternal map included 285 markers along the 15 linkage groups. The Siirt map spanned 1410.4 cM, with an average marker distance of 4.6 cM; the Pa-18 map covered 1362.5 cM with an average marker distance of 4.8 cM. Phenotypic data were collected during the growing seasons of 2015 and 2016 for four traits: leaf length (LL), leaf width (LW), leaf length/leaf width ratio (LWR), number of leaflet pairs (NLL), and young shoot color (YSC). A total of 17 QTLs were identified in the parental maps. Four QTLs for LL and LW were located on LG2 and LG4, while four QTLs for LWR ratio on LG13 and LG14, two QTLs for NLL and two QTLs for YSC were on LG7 and LG9, respectively, with similar positions in both parental maps. The SSR markers, linkage maps, and QTLs reported here will provide a valuable resource for future molecular and genetic studies in pistachio. © 2018, Springer Nature B.V. Firat University Scientific Research Projects Management Unit: FDK-2015-3642 TUBITAK-TOVAG +113O962 Acknowledgments This work was supported by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (Project No. TUBITAK-TOVAG +113O962), and the Cukurova University Scientific Research Projects Unit (Project No.: FDK-2015-3642).

Simple sequence repeats (SSRs) are co-dominant markers, and are very useful in constructing consensus maps in heterozygous perennial plant species like pistachio. Pistacia vera L. is the only cultivated species in the genus Pistacia. It is dioecious with a haploid chromosome count of n = 15. Saturated genetic linkage maps can be a reference to identify markers linked to economically important phenotypic traits that could be useful for early breeding and selection programs. Therefore, this study aimed to develop polymorphic SSR markers in silico and to construct the first SSR-based genetic linkage map in pistachio. The DNA sequences of three cultivars (Siirt, Ohadi, and Bagyolu) of P. vera and one genotype belonging to P. atlantica (Pa-18) were obtained by next-generation sequencing, and 625 polymorphic SSR loci were identified from 750 screened in silico polymorphic SSR primer pairs. The novel SSRs were used to construct SSR-based genetic linkage maps in pistachio along with published SSRs in Siirt × Bagyolu F1 population. Most (71.4%) of the SSRs were common markers that were used to construct consensus and parental maps spanning 15 linkage groups (LGs). A total of 384, 317, and 341 markers were mapped in the consensus, female, and male genetic maps with total lengths of 1511.3, 1427.0, and 1453.4 cM, respectively. The large number of SSR markers discovered and the first SSR-based genetic linkage map constructed in this study will be useful for anchoring loci for map integration, and will facilitate marker-assisted selection efforts for important horticultural traits in the genus Pistacia. © 2018, Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature. Firat University Scientific Research Projects Management Unit: FDK-2015-3641 Türkiye Bilimsel ve Teknolojik Araştirma Kurumu: TUBITAK-TOVAG-113O962 This work was supported by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (Project No: TUBITAK-TOVAG-113O962), and the Cukurova University Scientific Research Projects Unit (Project No: FDK-2015-3641). The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

The dioecious character of Pistacia vera L (the pistachio tree) limits its breeding capacity. Thus, early stage selection of males can save time, labor, and land. This study aimed to develop sex-linked single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers, together with expressed sequence tag-derived simple sequence repeats (EST-SSRs), to determine position of the sex locus in pistachio by constructing a linkage map of its sex chromosome for the first time. Nine novel sex-linked SNP markers were successfully identified by SNaPshot minisequencing analysis of 25 SNP loci from 17 restriction site-associated DNA (RAD) reads in 309 individuals. All nine markers were heterozygous in females and homozygous in males supporting a ZW/ZZ sex determination system in pistachio. A total of 105 segregating SSRs and sex-linked markers were used to identify the sex chromosome and the position of the sex locus through analysis of a Siirt × Bağyolu F1 population with 122 progenies. Of these 105 markers, four common and four paternal SSRs were mapped onto the sex chromosome, along with the phenotypic sex locus and sex-linked markers. The resulting consensus map had a total length of 65.19 cM. The sex locus and sex-linked SNP markers were located in the center of the chromosome at a distance of 31.86 and 31.92 cM, respectively. This study presents valuable information about the sex chromosome and sex locus position as well as novel polymorphic EST-SSRs and nine sex-linked SNP markers in pistachio. © 2017, Springer Science+Business Media B.V.

Background Pistachio (Pistacia vera L.) is one of the most important nut crops in the world. There are about 11 wild species in the genus Pistacia, and they have importance as rootstock seed sources for cultivated P. vera and forest trees. Published information on the pistachio genome is limited. Therefore, a genome survey is necessary to obtain knowledge on the genome structure of pistachio by next generation sequencing. Simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers are useful tools for germplasm characterization, genetic diversity analysis, and genetic linkage mapping, and may help to elucidate genetic relationships among pistachio cultivars and species. Results To explore the genome structure of pistachio, a genome survey was performed using the Illumina platform at approximately 40× coverage depth in the P. vera cv. Siirt. The K-mer analysis indicated that pistachio has a genome that is about 600 Mb in size and is highly heterozygous. The assembly of 26.77 Gb Illumina data produced 27,069 scaffolds at N50 = 3.4 kb with a total of 513.5 Mb. A total of 59,280 SSR motifs were detected with a frequency of 8.67 kb. A total of 206 SSRs were used to characterize 24 P. vera cultivars and 20 wild Pistacia genotypes (four genotypes from each five wild Pistacia species) belonging to P. atlantica, P. integerrima, P. chinenesis, P. terebinthus, and P. lentiscus genotypes. Overall 135 SSR loci amplified in all 44 cultivars and genotypes, 41 were polymorphic in six Pistacia species. The novel SSR loci developed from cultivated pistachio were highly transferable to wild Pistacia species. Conclusions The results from a genome survey of pistachio suggest that the genome size of pistachio is about 600 Mb with a high heterozygosity rate. This information will help to design whole genome sequencing strategies for pistachio. The newly developed novel polymorphic SSRs in this study may help germplasm characterization, genetic diversity, and genetic linkage mapping studies in the genus Pistacia. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12864-016-3359-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.