Catálogo de publicaciones - revistas

<jats:p>The contamination of soils with heavy metals and its associated hazardous effects are a thrust area of today’s research. Rapid industrialization, emissions from automobiles, agricultural inputs, improper disposal of waste, etc., are the major causes of soil contamination with heavy metals. These contaminants not only contaminate soil but also groundwater, reducing agricultural land and hence food quality. These contaminants enter the food chain and have a severe effect on human health. It is important to remove these contaminants from the soil. Various economic and ecological strategies are required to restore the soils contaminated with heavy metals. Phytoremediation is an emerging technology that is non-invasive, cost-effective, and aesthetically pleasing. Many metal-binding proteins (MBPs) of the plants are significantly involved in the phytoremediation of heavy metals; the MBPs include metallothioneins; phytochelatins; metalloenzymes; metal-activated enzymes; and many metal storage proteins, carrier proteins, and channel proteins. Plants are genetically modified to enhance their phytoremediation capacity. In <jats:italic>Arabidopsis</jats:italic>, the expression of the mercuric ion-binding protein in <jats:italic>Bacillus megaterium</jats:italic> improves the metal accumulation capacity. The phytoremediation efficiency of plants is also enhanced when assisted with microorganisms, biochar, and/or chemicals. Removing heavy metals from agricultural land without challenging food security is almost impossible. As a result, crop selections with the ability to sequester heavy metals and provide food security are in high demand. This paper summarizes the role of plant proteins and plant–microbe interaction in remediating soils contaminated with heavy metals. Biotechnological approaches or genetic engineering can also be used to tackle the problem of heavy metal contamination.</jats:p>

<jats:p>Plant protein phosphatase 2C (PP2C) play important roles in response to salt stress by influencing metabolic processes, hormone levels, growth factors, etc. Members of the PP2C family have been identified in many plant species. However, they are rarely reported in peanut. In this study, 178 <jats:italic>PP2C</jats:italic> genes were identified in peanut, which were unevenly distributed across the 20 chromosomes, with segmental duplication in 78 gene pairs. AhPP2Cs could be divided into 10 clades (A-J) by phylogenetic analysis. <jats:italic>AhPP2C</jats:italic>s had experienced segmental duplications and strong purifying selection pressure. 22 miRNAs from 14 different families were identified, targeting 57 <jats:italic>AhPP2C</jats:italic> genes. Gene structures and motifs analysis exhibited <jats:italic>PP2C</jats:italic>s in subclades AI and AII had high structural and functional similarities. Phosphorylation sites of <jats:italic>AhPP2C45</jats:italic>/<jats:italic>59</jats:italic>/<jats:italic>134</jats:italic>/<jats:italic>150</jats:italic>/<jats:italic>35</jats:italic>/<jats:italic>121</jats:italic> were predicted in motifs 2 and 4, which located within the catalytic site at the C-terminus. We discovered multiple MYB binding factors and ABA response elements in the promoter regions of the six genes (<jats:italic>AhPP2C45</jats:italic>/<jats:italic>59</jats:italic>/<jats:italic>134</jats:italic>/<jats:italic>150</jats:italic>/<jats:italic>35</jats:italic>/<jats:italic>121</jats:italic>) by <jats:italic>cis</jats:italic>-elements analysis. GO and KEGG enrichment analysis confirmed <jats:italic>AhPP2C-A</jats:italic> genes in protein binding, signal transduction, protein modification process response to abiotic stimulus through environmental information processing. Based on RNA-Seq data of 22 peanut tissues, clade A <jats:italic>AhPP2C</jats:italic>s showed a varying degree of tissue specificity, of which, <jats:italic>AhPP2C35</jats:italic> and <jats:italic>AhPP2C121</jats:italic> specifically expressed in seeds, while <jats:italic>AhPP2C45</jats:italic>/<jats:italic>59</jats:italic>/<jats:italic>134</jats:italic>/<jats:italic>150</jats:italic> expressed in leaves and roots. qRT-PCR indicated that <jats:italic>AhPP2C45</jats:italic> and <jats:italic>AhPP2C134</jats:italic> displayed significantly up-regulated expression in response to salt stress. These results indicated that <jats:italic>AhPP2C45</jats:italic> and <jats:italic>AhPP2C134</jats:italic> could be candidate <jats:italic>PP2Cs</jats:italic> conferring salt tolerance. These results provide further insights into the peanut <jats:italic>PP2C</jats:italic> gene family and indicate <jats:italic>PP2Cs</jats:italic> potentially involved in the response to salt stress, which can now be further investigated in peanut breeding efforts to obtain cultivars with improved salt tolerance.</jats:p>

<jats:p>Although utilization of heterosis has largely improved the yield of many crops worldwide, the underlying molecular mechanism of heterosis, particularly for allopolyploids, remains unclear. Here, we compared epigenome and transcriptome data of an elite hybrid and its parental lines in three assessed tissues (seedling, flower bud, and silique) to explore their contribution to heterosis in allopolyploid <jats:italic>B. napus</jats:italic>. Transcriptome analysis illustrated that a small proportion of non-additive genes in the hybrid compared with its parents, as well as parental expression level dominance, might have a significant effect on heterosis. We identified histone modification (H3K4me3 and H3K27me3) variation between the parents and hybrid, most of which resulted from the differences between parents. H3K4me3 variations were positively correlated with gene expression differences among the hybrid and its parents. Furthermore, H3K4me3 and H3K27me3 were rather stable in hybridization and were mainly inherited additively in the <jats:italic>B. napus</jats:italic> hybrid. Together, our data revealed that transcriptome reprogramming and histone modification remodeling in the hybrid could serve as valuable resources for better understanding heterosis in allopolyploid crops.</jats:p>

<jats:p>The release of new wheat varieties is based on two main characteristics, grain yield and quality, to meet the consumer’s demand. Identifying the genetic architecture for yield and key quality traits has wide attention for genetic improvement to meet the global requirement. In this sense, the use of landraces represents an impressive source of natural allelic variation. In this study, a genome-wide association analysis (GWAS) with PCA and kinship matrix was performed to detect QTLs in bread wheat for fifteen quality and agronomic traits using 170 diverse landraces from 24 Mediterranean countries in two years of field trials. A total of 53 QTL hotspots containing 165 significant marker-trait associations (MTAs) were located across the genome for quality and agronomical traits except for chromosome 2D. The major specific QTL hotspots for quality traits were QTL_3B.3 (13 MTAs with a mean PVE of 8.2%) and QTL_4A.3 (15 MTAs, mean PVE of 11.0%), and for yield-related traits were QTL_2B.1 (8 MTAs, mean PVE of 7.4%) and QTL_4B.2 (5 MTAs, mean PVE of 10.0%). A search for candidate genes (CG) identified 807 gene models within the QTL hotspots. Ten of these CGs were expressed specifically in grain supporting the role of identified QTLs in Landraces, associated to bread wheat quality traits and grain formation. A cross-validation approach within the collection was performed to calculate the accuracies of genomic prediction for quality and agronomical traits, ranging from -0.03 to 0.64 for quality and 0.46 to 0.65 for agronomic traits. In addition, five prediction equations using the phenotypic data were developed to predict bread loaf volume in landraces. The prediction ability varied from 0.67 to 0.82 depending on the complexity of the traits considered to predict loaf volume.</jats:p>

<jats:p>Studying population genetic structure and diversity is crucial for the marker-assisted selection and breeding of coniferous tree species. In this study, using RAD-seq technology, we developed 343,644 high-quality single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers to resolve the genetic diversity and population genetic structure of 233 Chinese fir selected individuals from the 4<jats:sup>th</jats:sup> cycle breeding program, representing different breeding generations and provenances. The genetic diversity of the 4<jats:sup>th</jats:sup> cycle breeding population was high with nucleotide diversity (<jats:italic>P<jats:sub>i</jats:sub></jats:italic>) of 0.003, and <jats:italic>H<jats:sub>o</jats:sub></jats:italic> and <jats:italic>H<jats:sub>e</jats:sub></jats:italic> of 0.215 and 0.233, respectively, indicating that the breeding population has a broad genetic base. The genetic differentiation level between the different breeding generations and different provenances was low (<jats:italic>F<jats:sub>st</jats:sub></jats:italic> &amp;lt; 0.05), with population structure analysis results dividing the 233 individuals into four subgroups. Each subgroup has a mixed branch with interpenetration and weak population structure, which might be related to breeding rather than provenance, with aggregation from the same source only being in the local branches. Our results provide a reference for further research on the marker-assisted selective breeding of Chinese fir and other coniferous trees.</jats:p>

<jats:p>Kip-related proteins (KRPs), as inhibitory proteins of cyclin-dependent kinases, are involved in the growth and development of plants by regulating the activity of the CYC-CDK complex to control cell cycle progression. The KRP gene family has been identified in several plants, and several KRP proteins from <jats:italic>Arabidopsis thaliana</jats:italic> have been functionally characterized. However, there is little research on KRP genes in soybean, which is an economically important crop. In this study, we identified nine <jats:italic>GmKRP</jats:italic> genes in the <jats:italic>Glycine max</jats:italic> genome using HMM modeling and BLASTP searches. Protein subcellular localization and conserved motif analysis showed soybean KRP proteins located in the nucleus, and the C-terminal protein sequence was highly conserved. By investigating the expression patterns in various tissues, we found that all <jats:italic>GmKRPs</jats:italic> exhibited transcript abundance, while several showed tissue-specific expression patterns. By analyzing the promoter region, we found that light, low temperature, an anaerobic environment, and hormones-related <jats:italic>cis</jats:italic>-elements were abundant. In addition, we performed a co-expression analysis of the <jats:italic>GmKRP</jats:italic> gene family, followed by Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) set enrichment analysis. The co-expressing genes were mainly involved in RNA synthesis and modification and energy metabolism. Furthermore, the <jats:italic>GmKRP2a</jats:italic> gene, a member of the soybean KRP family, was cloned for further functional analysis. GmKRP2a is located in the nucleus and participates in root development by regulating cell cycle progression. RNA-seq results indicated that GmKRP2a is involved in cell cycle regulation through ribosome regulation, cell expansion, hormone response, stress response, and plant pathogen response pathways. To our knowledge, this is the first study to identify and characterize the KRP gene family in soybean.</jats:p>

<jats:p>There are still uncertainties on the impacts of season-non-uniform-warming on plant precipitation use efficiency (PUE) and its temporal stability (PUE<jats:sub>stability</jats:sub>) in alpine areas. Here, we examined the changes of PUE and PUE<jats:sub>stability</jats:sub> under two scenes of non-growing/growing season non-uniform-warming (i.e., GLNG: growing-season-warming lower than non-growing-season-warming; GHNG: growing-season-warming higher than non-growing-season-warming) based on a five-year non-uniform-warming of non-growing/growing season experiment. The GLNG treatment increased PUE by 38.70% and reduced PUE<jats:sub>stability</jats:sub> by 50.47%, but the GHNG treatment did not change PUE and PUE<jats:sub>stability</jats:sub>. This finding was mainly due to the fact that the GLNG treatment had stronger influences on aboveground biomass (AGB), non-growing-season soil moisture (SM<jats:sub>NG</jats:sub>), temporal stability of AGB (AGB<jats:sub>stability</jats:sub>), temporal stability of non-growing-season air temperature (<jats:italic>T</jats:italic><jats:sub>a_NG_stability</jats:sub>), temporal stability of growing-season vapor pressure deficit (VPD<jats:sub>G_stability</jats:sub>) and temporal stability of start of growing-season (SGS<jats:sub>stability</jats:sub>). Therefore, the warming scene with a higher non-growing-season-warming can have greater influences on PUE and PUE<jats:sub>stability</jats:sub> than the warming scene with a higher growing-season-warming, and there were possibly trade-offs between plant PUE and PUE<jats:sub>stability</jats:sub> under season-non-uniform-warming scenes in the alpine meadow.</jats:p>

<jats:sec><jats:title>Introduction</jats:title><jats:p>Pre-harvest Sprouting (PHS) seriously affects wheat quality and yield. However, to date there have been limited reports. It is of great urgency to breed resistance varieties <jats:italic>via</jats:italic> quantitative trait nucleotides (QTNs) or genes for PHS resistance in white-grained wheat.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Methods</jats:title><jats:p>629 Chinese wheat varieties, including 373 local wheat varieties from 70 years ago and 256 improved wheat varieties were phenotyped for spike sprouting (SS) in two environments and genotyped by wheat 660K microarray. These phenotypes were used to associate with 314,548 SNP markers for identifying QTNs for PHS resistance using several multi-locus genome-wide association study (GWAS) methods. Their candidate genes were verified by RNA-seq, and the validated candidate genes were further exploited in wheat breeding.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Results</jats:title><jats:p>As a result, variation coefficients of 50% and 47% for PHS in 629 wheat varieties, respectively, in 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 indicated large phenotypic variation, in particular, 38 white grain varieties appeared at least medium resistance, such as Baipimai, Fengchan 3, and Jimai 20. In GWAS, 22 significant QTNs, with the sizes of 0.06% ~ 38.11%, for PHS resistance were stably identified by multiple multi-locus methods in two environments, e.g., AX-95124645 (chr3D:571.35Mb), with the sizes of 36.390% and 45.850% in 2020-2021 and 2021-2022, respectively, was detected by several multi-locus methods in two environments. As compared with previous studies, the AX-95124645 was used to develop Kompetitive Allele-Specific PCR marker QSS.TAF9-3D (chr3D:569.17Mb~573.55Mb) for the first time, especially, it is available in white-grain wheat varieties. Around this locus, nine genes were significantly differentially expressed, and two of them (TraesCS3D01G466100 and TraesCS3D01G468500) were found by GO annotation to be related to PHS resistance and determined as candidate genes.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Discussion</jats:title><jats:p>The QTN and two new candidate genes related to PHS resistance were identified in this study. The QTN can be used to effectively identify the PHS resistance materials, especially, all the white-grained varieties with QSS.TAF9-3D-TT haplotype are resistant to spike sprouting. Thus, this study provides candidate genes, materials, and methodological basis for breeding wheat PHS resistance in the future.</jats:p></jats:sec>

<jats:p>Cadmium (Cd) pollution is very common and serious in mangrove ecosystems in China. Zinc (Zn) has been used to reduce Cd accumulation in plants, and phenolic acid metabolism plays an important role in plant response to stress. In present study, in order to clarify whether Zn alleviates Cd toxicity in mangrove plants through phenolic acid metabolism, the Cd-contaminated <jats:italic>Kandelia obovata</jats:italic> plants were treated with different concentrations of (0, 80,300, and 400 mg·kg<jats:sup>–1</jats:sup>) ZnSO<jats:sub>4</jats:sub> in a set of pot experiments and the biomass, the contents of Cd, Zn, soluble sugar, chlorophyll and the activities of 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH), ferric-reducing antioxidant power (FRAP), <jats:sc>l</jats:sc>-phenylalanine ammonia-lyase (PAL), shikimic acid dehydrogenase (SKDH), cinnamyl alcohol dehydrogenase (CAD) and polyphenol oxidase (PPO) in the leaves were analyzed. The results showed that Cd contents in the leaves of <jats:italic>Kandelia obovata</jats:italic> ranged from 0.077 to 0.197 mg·kg<jats:sup>–1</jats:sup> under different treatments, and Zn contents ranged from 90.260 to 114.447 mg·kg<jats:sup>–1</jats:sup>. Low-dose ZnSO<jats:sub>4</jats:sub> treatment (80 mg·kg<jats:sup>–1</jats:sup>) performed significant positive effects on the biomass, phenolic acid metabolism-related enzyme activities, antioxidant capacity, and chlorophyll and soluble sugar contents in the leaves of Cd-contaminated mangrove plants. At the meantime, the addition of low-dose ZnSO<jats:sub>4</jats:sub> promoted the biosynthesis of hydroxycinnamic acid, hydroxybenzoic acid, and enhanced the plant antioxidant capacity, thus alleviated Cd toxicity in mangrove plants.</jats:p>

<jats:p><jats:italic>Larix principis-rupprechtii</jats:italic> Mayr (larch) is one of the main afforestation and timber production species used in North China. Climate change has led to a change in its suitable distribution and growth. However, the impact of climate change on its growth suitability is not clear. In this study, using forest resource inventory data and spatially continuous environmental factor data (temperature, precipitation, topography, and soil) in Hebei and Shanxi Provinces, China, the random forest model (RF) was used to simulate the larch site index (SI) and growth suitability under three shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs: SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5, and SSP5-8.5) for the current and future (2021–2040, 2041–2060 and 2080–2100). The results revealed that (1) RF had excellent performance in predicting the regional SI (R<jats:sup>2</jats:sup> = 0.73, MAE = 0.93 m, RMSE = 1.35 m); (2) the main factors affecting the productivity of larch were the mean temperature of the warmest quarter (BIO10), elevation (ELEV), mean diurnal range (BIO2), and annual precipitation (BIO12); and (3) larch currently had a higher SI in the Bashang areas and in the high-altitude mountains. The areas characterized as unsuitable, poorly suitable, moderately suitable, and highly suitable accounted for 15.45%, 42.12%, 31.94%, and 10.49% of the total area, respectively. (4) Future climate warming had an obvious inhibitory effect on the SI, and the effect strengthened with increasing radiation intensity and year. (5) The moderately suitable and highly suitable areas of larch growth showed a downward trend under future climate scenarios. By the end of this century, the suitable growth areas would decrease by 14.14% under SSP1-2.6, 15.17% under SSP2-4.5, and 19.35% under SSP5-8.5. The results revealed the impact of climate change on larch growth suitability, which can provide a scientific basis for larch forest management.</jats:p>