The clinical utility in hospital-wide use of growth differentiation factor 15 as a biomarker for mitochondrial DNA-related disorders.

Clinical recognition of primary mitochondrial disorders (PMD) is difficult due to the clinical and genetic heterogeneity. Whereas lactate has low sensitivity and specificity, in structured clinical studies growth differentiation factor 15 (GDF15) has shown promise with elevations in mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA)-related PMD, but its specificity has been questioned. In a tertiary care hospital-wide study, medical records were retrospectively reviewed from 418 cases where GDF15 levels were obtained by clinicians.

Transcriptome Characterization of Developing Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) Pods from Two Genotypes with Contrasting Seed Zinc Concentrations.

Dry bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) seeds are a rich source of dietary zinc, especially for people consuming plant-based diets. Within P.

The Phaseolus vulgaris ZIP gene family: identification, characterization, mapping, and gene expression.

Zinc is an essential mineral for humans and plants and is involved in many physiological and biochemical processes. In humans, Zn deficiency has been associated with retarded growth and reduction of immune response. In plants, Zn is an essential component of more than 300 enzymes including RNA polymerase, alkaline phosphatase, alcohol dehydrogenase, Cu/Zn superoxidase dismutase, and carbonic anhydrase.

Gene-based single nucleotide polymorphism markers for genetic and association mapping in common bean.

Background: In common bean, expressed sequence tags (ESTs) are an underestimated source of gene-based markers such as insertion-deletions (Indels) or single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). However, due to the nature of these conserved sequences, detection of markers is difficult and portrays low levels of polymorphism. Therefore, development of intron-spanning EST-SNP markers can be a valuable resource for genetic experiments such as genetic mapping and association studies.

Saturation of an intra-gene pool linkage map: towards a unified consensus linkage map for fine mapping and synteny analysis in common bean.

Map-based cloning and fine mapping to find genes of interest and marker assisted selection (MAS) requires good genetic maps with reproducible markers. In this study, we saturated the linkage map of the intra-gene pool population of common bean DOR364 × BAT477 (DB) by evaluating 2,706 molecular markers including SSR, SNP, and gene-based markers. On average the polymorphism rate was 7.

Construction and EST sequencing of full-length, drought stress cDNA libraries for common beans (Phaseolus vulgaris L.).

Background: Common bean is an important legume crop with only a moderate number of short expressed sequence tags (ESTs) made with traditional methods. The goal of this research was to use full-length cDNA technology to develop ESTs that would overlap with the beginning of open reading frames and therefore be useful for gene annotation of genomic sequences. The library was also constructed to represent genes expressed under drought, low soil phosphorus and high soil aluminum toxicity.

Variation and inheritance of iron reductase activity in the roots of common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) and association with seed iron accumulation QTL.

Background: Iron deficiency anemia is a global problem which often affects women and children of developing countries. Strategy I plants, such as common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) take up iron through a process that involves an iron reduction mechanism in their roots; this reduction is required to convert ferric iron to ferrous iron.

Single strand conformation polymorphism based SNP and Indel markers for genetic mapping and synteny analysis of common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.).

Background: Expressed sequence tags (ESTs) are an important source of gene-based markers such as those based on insertion-deletions (Indels) or single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Several gel based methods have been reported for the detection of sequence variants, however they have not been widely exploited in common bean, an important legume crop of the developing world. The objectives of this project were to develop and map EST based markers using analysis of single strand conformation polymorphisms (SSCPs), to create a transcript map for common bean and to compare synteny of the common bean map with sequenced chromosomes of other legumes.