Crop diversification required to meet demands for food security and industrial use is often challenged by breeding time and amenability of varieties to genome modification. Cassava is one such crop. Grown for its large starch-rich storage roots, it serves as a staple food and a commodity in the multibillion-dollar starch industry.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAim: We report the construction of a Virus-Induced Gene Silencing (VIGS) vector and an agroinoculation protocol for gene silencing in cassava ( Crantz) leaves and roots. The African cassava mosaic virus isolate from Nigeria (ACMV-[NOg]), which was initially cloned in a binary vector for agroinoculation assays, was modified for application as VIGS vector. The functionality of the VIGS vector was validated in and subsequently applied in wild-type and transgenic cassava plants expressing the gene under the control of the CaMV 35S promoter in order to facilitate the visualization of gene silencing in root tissues.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMapping-by-sequencing has emerged as a powerful technique for genetic mapping in several plant and animal species. As this resequencing-based method requires a reference genome, its application to complex plant genomes with incomplete and fragmented sequence resources remains challenging. We perform exome sequencing of phenotypic bulks of a mapping population of barley segregating for a mutant phenotype that increases the rate of leaf initiation.
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