Adding value to cocoa (Theobroma cacao L.) germplasm information with domestication history and admixture mapping.

A sound understanding of crop history can provide the basis for deriving novel genetic information through admixture mapping. We confirmed this, by using characterization data from an international collection of cocoa, collected 25 years ago, and from a contemporary plantation. We focus on the trees derived from three centuries of admixture between Meso-American Criollo and South American Forastero genomes.

Engineered Resistance Against Papaya ringspot virus in Venezuelan Transgenic Papayas.

Local varieties of papaya grown in the Andean foothills of Mérida, Venezuela, were transformed independently with the coat protein (CP) gene from two different geographical Papaya ringspot virus (PRSV) isolates, designated VE and LA, via Agrobacterium tumefaciens. The CP genes of both PRSV isolates show 92 and 96% nucleotide and amino acid sequence similarity, respectively. Four PRSV-resistant R0 plants were intercrossed or selfed, and the progenies were tested for resistance against the homologous isolates VE and LA, and the heterologous isolates HA (Hawaii) and TH (Thailand) in greenhouse conditions.

[Characterization of plasmids which mediate resistance to multiple antibiotics in gram-negative bacteria of nosocomial origin].

Background: The genetic and molecular mechanisms involved in antimicrobial resistance of 10 strains of gramnegative bacilli (1 Serratia marcescens; 2 Escherichia coli; 1 Proteus mirabilis; 4 Klebsiella pneumoniae; 1 Enterobacter cloacae y 1 Alcaligenes faecalis), isolated from adult patients with nosocomial pulmonary infection at the in-patient facilities of the University Hospital of Los Andes, Mérida, Venezuela, have been studied.

Methods: The antimicrobial susceptibility was determined by minimum inhibitory concentrations using the dilution method in agar. The study of extrachromosomal genes was carried out by conjugation, bacterial infection with the bacteriophage M13 and curing of plasmid by acridine orange.

[In vivo cloning of genes of Escherichia coli K12 by means of homologue recombination].

Plasmid pT153, a stable recombinant between pBR322 plasmid and M13 bacteriophage, and Tn10 transposon were employed for in vivo cloning of a chromosomal segment of Escherichia coli including the nar locus. The strategy consisted in creating an homology between pT153 and the E. coli chromosome, incorporating a Tn10 transposon close to the nar locus of a polA12 temperature-sensitive strain.

[Obtention of Trypanosoma cruzi clones of thin and thick epimastigotes and trypomastigotes living in the blood on various agar media].

Trypanosoma cruzi (EP strain) presents clonal growth when it is incorporated into at 0.7% agar and at 0.8% in surface.