The Toolbox for Fiber Flax Breeding: A Pipeline From Gene Expression to Fiber Quality.

The goal of any plant breeding program is to improve quality of a target crop. Crop quality is a comprehensive feature largely determined by biological background. To improve the quality parameters of crops grown for the production of fiber, a functional approach was used to search for genes suitable for the effective manipulation of technical fiber quality.

A key enzyme of animal steroidogenesis can function in plants enhancing their immunity and accelerating the processes of growth and development.

Background: The initial stage of the biosynthesis of steroid hormones in animals occurs in the mitochondria of steroidogenic tissues, where cytochrome P450 (CYP11A1) encoded by the CYP11A1 gene catalyzes the conversion of cholesterol into pregnenolone - the general precursor of all the steroid hormones, starting with progesterone. This stage is missing in plants where mitochondrial cytochromes P450 (the mito CYP clan) have not been found. Generating transgenic plants with a mitochondrial type P450 from animals would offer an interesting option to verify whether plant mitochondria could serve as another site of P450 monooxygenase reaction for the steroid hormones biosynthesis.