Genome-wide association study of agronomic traits related to nitrogen use efficiency in Henan wheat.

Background: Nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) is closely related to crop yield and nitrogen fertilizer application rate. Although NUE is susceptible to environments, quantitative trait nucleotides (QTNs) for NUE in wheat germplasm populations have been rarely reported in genome-wide associated study.

Results: In this study, 244 wheat accessions were phenotyped by three NUE-related traits in three environments and genotyped by 203,224 SNPs.

Mapping quantitative trait loci and developing their KASP markers for pre-harvest sprouting resistance of Henan wheat varieties in China.

Introduction: 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 quantitative trait nucleotides (QTNs) or genes for PHS resistance in white-grained wheat.

Transgenic expression of rice OsPHR2 increases phosphorus uptake and yield in wheat.

Oryza sativa PHOSPHATE RESPONSE2 (OsPHR2) can promote the uptake and use of phosphorus (P) in rice. We introduced OsPHR2 into the winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) variety "Zhengmai0856.

Identification and validation of a novel locus, Qpm-3BL, for adult plant resistance to powdery mildew in wheat using multilocus GWAS.

Background: Powdery mildew (PM), one of the major diseases in wheat, severely damages yield and quality, and the most economical and effective way to address this issue is to breed disease-resistant cultivars. Accordingly, 371 landraces and 266 released cultivars in Henan Province were genotyped by a 660 K microarray and phenotyped for adult plant resistance (APR) to PM from 2017 to 2020, and these datasets were used to conduct multilocus genome-wide association studies (GWASs).

Results: Thirty-six varieties showed stable APR in all the environments, and eleven quantitative trait nucleotides (QTNs) were found by multiple methods across multiple environments and best linear unbiased prediction (BLUP) values to be significantly associated with APR.

Response of transgenic expressing maize C photosynthetic enzyme genes to high light.

This study assessed the responses of wild-type (WT) and transgenic expressing seven combinations of maize () genes phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase (), pyruvate phosphate dikinase (), and NADP-malic enzyme () to high light. Our results showed that the net CO assimilation rate () and shoot dry weight of four of the transgenic genotypes were significantly different from those of WT under high-light treatment, being in the order of (PC-K-M) > (PC-K) > (PC), (PC-M) > WT. The other genotypes did not differ from WT.

Joint expression of Zmpepc, Zmppdk, and Zmnadp-me is more efficient than expression of one or two of those genes in improving the photosynthesis of Arabidopsis.

This study assessed the effects of seven combinations of maize (Zea mays) genes phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase (pepc), pyruvate phosphate dikinase (ppdk), and NADP-malic enzyme (nadp-me), on the photosynthesis of Arabidopsis. The photosynthetic rate, carboxylation efficiency, and shoot-dry-weight of Zmpepc (PC), Zmpepc + Zmppdk (PCK), Zmpepc + Zmnadp-me (PCM), and Zmpepc + Zmppdk + Zmnadp-me (PCKM) were significantly higher than those of the control wild-type (WT), with a trends to be PCKM > PCK > PC and PCM > WT. This indicated that Zmpepc was a prerequisite for improved photosynthetic performance; Zmppdk had a positive effect on Zmpepc, and the triple gene combination had the most significant synergistic effects.

A novel role of long non-coding RNAs in response to X-ray irradiation.

In the present study, the role of lncRNAs in response to radiation-induced DNA damage and oxidative stress were explored to improve our understanding of the biological pathways activated upon radiation-induced toxicity. The toxicity of X-ray radiation on human bronchial epithelial cell lines (HBE) was determined through a dose-dependent increase in ROS production and γ-H2AX formation and changes to lncRNA expression was observed and quantified using lncRNA-specific microarrays. 115 lncRNAs expression was increased in a dose-dependent manner following X-ray irradiation.