CRISPR/Cas9-mediated mutations of FANTASTIC FOUR gene family for creating early flowering mutants in tomato.

Flowering time is of great agricultural importance and the timing and extent of flowering usually determines yield and availability of flowers, fruits and seeds. Identification of genes determining flowering has important practical applications for tomato breeding. Here we demonstrate the roles of the FANTASTIC FOUR (FAF) gene family in regulating tomato flowering time.

Multiple-model GWAS identifies optimal allelic combinations of quantitative trait loci for malic acid in tomato.

Malic acid (MA) is an important flavor acid in fruits and acts as a mediator in a series of metabolic pathways. It is important to understand the factors affecting MA metabolism for fruit flavor improvement and to understand MA-mediated biological processes. However, the metabolic accumulation of MA is controlled by complex heredity and environmental factors, making it difficult to predict and regulate the metabolism of MA.

A 21-bp InDel in the promoter of selected during tomato improvement accounts for soluble solid content in fruits.

Domestication and improvement are important processes that generate the variation in genome and phonotypes underlying crop improvement. Unfortunately, during selection for certain attributes, other valuable traits may be inadvertently discarded. One example is the decline in fruit soluble solids content (SSC) during tomato breeding.

MdWOX4-2 modulated MdLBD41 functioning in adventitious shoot of apple (Malus domestica).

Apple (Malus domestica Borkh.) is not only an important fruit crop distributed worldwide, but also a common model plant. However, the lack of efficient genetic transformation procedures for apples limits the in-depth studies of their gene functions.

The Artificial Promoter Confers Flower-specific Activity in .

Genetic modifications of floral organs are important in the breeding of Malus species. Flower-specific promoters can be used to improve floral organs specifically, without affecting vegetative organs, and therefore developing such promoters is highly desirable. Here, we characterized two paralogs of the gene from (apple): MdAG1 and MdAG2 We then isolated the second-intron sequences for both genes, and created four artificial promoters by fusing each intron sequence to a minimal promoter sequence in both the forward and reverse directions.

[Design of a universal robot system for health monitoring and medical services].

An autonomous robot system that is able to provide real time health monitoring and simple medical services is realized in this design. The system applies multiple sensors to monitor ordinary healthcare parameters, which is then transmitted via ZigBee network. In case of emergency, real time medicine delivery service is provided by the robot, applying a novel Received Signal Strength (RSS) based location method in ZigBee network.