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The purpose of our study was to determine the impact of rosemary extract in duck eggs, as determined by

Yield is one of the most important agronomic traits for the breeding of rapeseed (Brassica napus L), but its genetic dissection for the formation of high yield remains enigmatic, given the rapid population growth. In the present review, we review the discovery of major loci underlying important agronomic traits and the recent advancement in the selection of complex traits. Further, we discuss the benchmark summary of high-throughput techniques for the high-resolution genetic breeding of rapeseed. Biparental linkage analysis and association mapping have become powerful strategies to comprehend the genetic architecture of complex agronomic traits in crops. The generation of improved crop varieties, especially rapeseed, is greatly urged to enhance yield productivity. In this sense, the whole-genome sequencing of rapeseed has become achievable to clone and identify quantitative trait loci (QTLs). Moreover, the generation of high-throughput sequencing and genotyping techniques has significantly enhanced the precision of QTL mapping and genome-wide association study (GWAS) methodologies. Furthermore, this study demonstrates the first attempt to identify novel QTLs of yield-related traits, specifically focusing on ovule number per pod (ON). We also highlight the recent breakthrough concerning single-locus-GWAS (SL-GWAS) and multi-locus GWAS (ML-GWAS), which aim to enhance the potential and robust control of GWAS for improved complex traits.

In the present study, we investigated the effect of galangal extract on the lipid oxidation, antioxidant activity and fatty acid composition of salted duck eggs. Three groups of salted duck eggs were comparatively assessed: salted duck egg enriched with 0.1% and 0.5% (w/v) of galangal extract and salted duck egg without galangal extract as a control. Results showed that galangal extract significantly reduced 2-thiobarbituric acid reactive substances from 1.60 mg MDA kg−1 to 1.07 mg MDA kg−1 and anisidine values from 67.55 to 53.64 at the end of salting time, moreover, decrease in the levels of conjugated dienes were also noticed from 0.018 to 0.007% during the salting time compared to the control group. Furthermore, galangal extract along with salting time also had significant effects on the fatty acid composition. Oleic acid, followed by palmitic acid and margaric acid, were the predominant fatty acids found in salted duck eggs supplemented with galangal extract after 14 days of salting process. Results of DPPH-scavenging activity indicated that salted duck eggs supplemented with 0.5% (w/v) galangal extract had significantly higher antioxidant activity (p

Background Elevated ultraviolet-B (UV-B) radiation is potentially deleterious to many organisms specifically crop plants and has become a global challenge. Rice is an exceptionally important staple food which is grown worldwide, and many efforts have been done recently to improve rice varieties against UV-B stress. This current study aims to investigate the effects of exogenous application of β-sitosterol (βSito) on growth improvement and tolerance level of rice plants against prolonged UV-B stress. The physiological and metabolic responses were evaluated in rice plants not supplemented with βSito (Nβ) and those supplemented with βSito (Sβ). Results The Nβ and Sβ plants were grown under non-stress (ns) and under prolonged UV-B stress (uvs) conditions and termed as Nβns, Sβns and Nβuvs, Sβuvs, respectively. The application of βSito contributes positively under non-stress and specifically to UV-B stress in terms of improving numerous physiological parameters associated with growth and development such as shoot and root length, RWC, whole plant biomass, chlorophyll pigments, and photosynthetic-related parameters (Pn, Gs, Tr, WUEi, Fv/Fm, and NPQ) in Sβ compared with Nβ plants. Moreover, enhanced oxidative stress tolerance of Sβuvs vs. Nβuvs plants under stress was attributed to low levels of ROS and substantial trigger in activities of antioxidant enzymes (SOD, POD, CAT, and APX). Metabolic analysis was performed using GC-TOFMS, which revealed higher accumulation of several key metabolites including organic acids, sugars, amino acids, and others in Sβuvs vs. Nβuvs plants, which were mainly reduced in Nβ plants under stress vs. non-stress conditions. Conclusion These results provide useful data regarding the important role of βSito on growth maintenance and modulation of several metabolites associated with osmotic and redox adjustments during UV-B stress tolerance in rice plants. Importantly, βSito-regulated plasticity could further be explored specifically in relation to different environmental stresses in other economically useful crop plants.

Ship stability is one of the mind-boggling concepts that alludes to the safety of a vessel and those onboard. It is termed as the ability of a ship to return to its upright position, when disturbed. However, this study explicitly aims to focus on determining only the intact stability of the vessel, as a part of general concept of ship's seaworthiness. Specifically, it investigates the intact stability of the model hull form at large angles of inclinations because the metacenter's position does not remain fixed, dissimilar to the instance of small heel angles. In this context, previously used approximate approaches are discussed and in addition to that, an analytical approach has additionally been contrived. This analytical approach relies on the cross curves of stability (KN curves) for formation of statical curves of stability (GZ curves), which is the measure of large angle stability of a vessel. With the aid of this approach, a code has been composed using MATLAB programming language to compute the intact stability of a vessel via offset data provided. The point to ponder here is that this program does calculations without any dependency on a 3D model. The results of this code are extracted in graphical form i.e. body plan, hydrostatic curves and GZ curve, and these results are further on validated using marine design software. On this premise, it is concluded that the analytical approach taken for calculations is appropriate and thus, the GZ curves formed are accurate.

Background Phytochromes are plant photoreceptors that have long been associated with photomorphogenesis in plants; however, more recently, their crucial role in the regulation of variety of abiotic stresses has been explored. Chilling stress is one of the abiotic factors that severely affect growth, development, and productivity of crops. In the present work, we have analyzed and compared physiological, biochemical, and molecular responses in two contrasting phytochrome mutants of tomato, namely aurea (aur) and high pigment1 (hp1), along with wild-type cultivar Micro-Tom (MT) under chilling stress. In tomato, aur is phytochrome-deficient mutant while hp1 is a phytochrome-sensitive mutant. The genotype-specific physiological, biochemical, and molecular responses under chilling stress in tomato mutants strongly validated phytochrome-mediated regulation of abiotic stress. Results Here, we demonstrate that phytochrome-sensitive mutant hp1 show improved performance compared to phytochrome-deficient mutant aur and wild-type MT plants under chilling stress. Interestingly, we noticed significant increase in several photosynthetic-related parameters in hp1 under chilling stress that include photosynthetic rate, stomatal conductance, stomatal aperture, transpiration rate, chlorophyll a and carotenoids. Whereas most parameters were negatively affected in aur and MT except a slight increase in carotenoids in MT plants under chilling stress. Further, we found that PSII quantum efficiency (Fv/Fm), PSII operating efficiency (Fq′/Fm′), and non-photochemical quenching (NPQ) were all positively regulated in hp1, which demonstrate enhanced photosynthetic performance of hp1 under stress. On the other hand, Fv/Fm and Fq′/Fm′ were decreased significantly in aur and wild-type plants. In addition, NPQ was not affected in MT but declined in aur mutant after chilling stress. Noticeably, the transcript analysis show that PHY genes which were previously reported to act as molecular switches in response to several abiotic stresses were mainly induced in hp1 and repressed in aur and MT in response to stress. As expected, we also found reduced levels of malondialdehyde (MDA), enhanced activities of antioxidant enzymes, and higher accumulation of protecting osmolytes (soluble sugars, proline, glycine betaine) which further elaborate the underlying tolerance mechanism of hp1 genotype under chilling stress. Conclusion Our findings clearly demonstrate that phytochrome-sensitive and phytochrome-deficient tomato mutants respond differently under chilling stress thereby regulating physiological, biochemical, and molecular responses and thus establish a strong link between phytochromes and their role in stress tolerance.

Additional file 1: Supplementary Table S1. Primers list used for qRT-PCR based tomato PHY genes expression.

A constant supply of soil nutrients is critical for the normal growth and development of plants. However, most environments are unstable and this variability depends on numerous factors that includ...

Improving nutritional fruit quality and impacts important agro-traits such as biotic or abiotic stresses are extremely important for human civilization. Our previous study reported that manipulation of SlMX1 gene enhanced carotenoids accumulation and drought resistance in tomato. Here, RNA-Seq analysis proved to be a very useful tool to provide insights into the regulatory mechanisms of SlMX1 involved in stress resistance and enhanced secondary metabolites. Physiological analysis showed that over-expression of SlMX1 results in substantially increased broad-spectrum tolerance to a wide-range of abiotic and biotic (fungus, bacteria, virus and insects) stresses in tomato. This research appears to be of remarkable interest because enhanced terpenoids content has been achieved by increasing trichome density. In addition, we reported two types of trichome which seems to be aberrant types in tomato. This study unravels the mechanism of regulation of SlMX1, which simultaneously modulates resistance and metabolic processes through regulating key structural and regulatory genes of the corresponding pathways.

Plants are the ultimate source of nutrients in the human diet. To ensure adequate availability of high quality food for an increasing world population, traits including improved tolerance of stresses and nutrient levels need to be selected in crops, both individually and in combination. Here we report the identification of SlMX1 encoding a MIXTA-like MYB transcription factor in tomato that simultaneously modulates drought resistance and metabolic processes through regulating key structural and regulatory genes of the corresponding pathways. Over-expression of SlMX1 results in substantially increased drought tolerance and improved fruit quality, while knocking down SlMX1 resulted in the opposite phenotypes. Our study indicates an effective way with multiple beneficial traits by genetic engineering of a single regulatory gene and can be a novel approach to breeding crops.

Potato (Solanum tuberosum) late blight caused by oomycete Phytophthora infestans (Pi) is highly destructive to potato yield and cost huge losses each year. Regulation of a network of transcription machinery, controlled by transcription factors (TF’s), is required to overcome the susceptibility. WRKY TF’s are known to regulate transcription machinery upon biotic and abiotic stresses in different crop plants. We cloned and characterized a WRKY gene, StWRKY1, from potato cDNA synthesized from Pi infested leaves. StWRKY1 protein localized typically in the nucleus. Overexpression (OE) of StWRKY1 positively regulates Pi resistance as well as drought tolerance in transgenic potato. The elevated resistance in OE lines was co-related with higher accumulation of pathogenesis-related (PR) genes as compared to untransformed control plants. Interestingly, increased susceptibility of co-suppression (CSP) plants was associated with down regulation of PR genes expression. Moreover, transgenic lines overexpressing StWRKY1 showed tolerance in terms of less rate of water loss, during dehydration assay. Importantly, expression of StWRKY1 was upregulated upon treatment with plant hormones, suggesting its involvement in basal signal transduction pathway. Overall, our findings provided evidence that StWRKY1 positively regulate biotic and abiotic stress resistance thereby modulating plant basal defense networks, thus play a significant role for crop improvement.

Antioxidant activity, lipid oxidation, fatty acid composition and volatile compounds of duck eggs supplemented with clove extract were monitored over the salting period. The results indicated that application of clove extracts significantly reduced 2-thiobarbituric acid reactive substances and anisidine values as well as the conjugated dienes levels during curing. Clove extracts along with salting time had significant effects on the fatty acid composition. The predominant fatty acid in salted duck eggs supplemented with clove extracts for 14 day of the salting process was oleic acid, followed by palmitic acid and arachidonic acid. Additionally, treated eggs exhibited a higher docosahexaenoic acid content than that of control. The results of SPME GC–MS showed the presence of 46 and 37 volatiles in the treated eggs. Eugenol, as the primary bioactive component of clove, was detected in salted eggs supplemented with clove extracts. In addition, analyzing the results obtained through electronic nose showed that clove extract brought significant changes in salted eggs flavor components.

Lipid oxidation, fatty acid profile and microstructure of duck egg supplemented with garlic oil were monitored over the salting period. The antioxidant activity of garlic oil was measured by 1,1-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) assay and its activity was compared to that of standard synthetic antioxidants (butylated hydroxyl toluene and gallic acid). The scavenging percentage of garlic oil increased in a dose-dependent manner. The supplementation of garlic oil altered the characteristics of duck egg during salting. In addition, oil exudation by yolk and lipid oxidation (thiobarbituric acid reactive substances) showed an increasing trend concomitant with salting time. Microstructure observation revealed comparatively loose shell membrane structure in duck egg supplemented with garlic oil, which facilitates the transportation of oil toward the yolk. These findings contribute to a better understanding that garlic oil can be used as a potential antioxidant agent and a healthy natural food additive. Practical Applications Preservation of duck eggs by salting can maintain their quality and extend the storage period, but lipid oxidation should be prevented or minimized to assure their quality and fatty acid stability during storage. Using garlic can significantly decrease the total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein and very-low-density lipoprotein, and increase the level of high-density lipoprotein in serum and is recommended as a dietary supplement and natural food additive. The use of garlic oil to treat salted duck eggs showed positive effects on their lipid oxidation and microstructural properties.

Adaptation to environmental changes is an important fitness trait for crop development. Photoperiod is an essential factor in seasonal control of flowering time. Sensing of day-length requires an interaction between the Photoperiod and the endogenous rhythms that is controlled by plant circadian clock. Thus, circadian clock is a critical regulator and internal molecular time-keeping mechanism, controlling key agricultural traits in crop plants such as the ability to adjust their growth and physiology to anticipate diurnal environmental changes. Here, we describe the gene Tomato Dof Daily Fluctuations 1 (TDDF1), which is involved in circadian regulation and stress resistance. Large daily oscillations in TDDF1 expression were retained after transferring to continuous dark (DD) or light (LL) conditions. Interestingly, overexpressing TDDF1 induce early flowering in tomato through up-regulation of the flowering-time control genes, moreover, by protein-protein interaction with the floral inducer SFT gene. Notably, overexpressing TDDF1 in tomato was associated with chlorophyll overaccumulation by up-regulating the related biosynthetic genes. TDDF1 expression results in improved drought, salt, various hormones stress tolerance alongwith resistance to late blight caused by Phytophthora infestans. This study can be a distinctive strategy to improve other economically important crops.