Chasing breeding footprints through structural variations in Cucumis melo and wild relatives.

Cucumis melo (melon or muskmelon) is an important crop in the family of the Cucurbitaceae. Melon is cross pollinated and domesticated at several locations throughout the breeding history, resulting in highly diverse genetic structure in the germplasm. Yet, the relations among the groups and cultivars are still incomplete.

DNA sequence and shape are predictive for meiotic crossovers throughout the plant kingdom.

A better understanding of genomic features influencing the location of meiotic crossovers (COs) in plant species is both of fundamental importance and of practical relevance for plant breeding. Using CO positions with sufficiently high resolution from four plant species [Arabidopsis thaliana, Solanum lycopersicum (tomato), Zea mays (maize) and Oryza sativa (rice)] we have trained machine-learning models to predict the susceptibility to CO formation. Our results show that CO occurrence within various plant genomes can be predicted by DNA sequence and shape features.

Distribution, position and genomic characteristics of crossovers in tomato recombinant inbred lines derived from an interspecific cross between Solanum lycopersicum and Solanum pimpinellifolium.

We determined the crossover (CO) distribution, frequency and genomic sequences involved in interspecies meiotic recombination by using parent-assigned variants of 52 F recombinant inbred lines obtained from a cross between tomato, Solanum lycopersicum, and its wild relative, Solanum pimpinellifolium. The interspecific CO frequency was 80% lower than reported for intraspecific tomato crosses. We detected regions showing a relatively high and low CO frequency, so-called hot and cold regions.

Mitochondrial DNA diversity of modern, ancient and wild sheep(Ovis gmelinii anatolica) from Turkey: new insights on the evolutionary history of sheep.

In the present study, to contribute to the understanding of the evolutionary history of sheep, the mitochondrial (mt) DNA polymorphisms occurring in modern Turkish native domestic (n = 628), modern wild (Ovis gmelinii anatolica) (n = 30) and ancient domestic sheep from Oylum Höyük in Kilis (n = 33) were examined comparatively with the accumulated data in the literature. The lengths (75 bp/76 bp) of the second and subsequent repeat units of the mtDNA control region (CR) sequences differentiated the five haplogroups (HPGs) observed in the domestic sheep into two genetic clusters as was already implied by other mtDNA markers: the first cluster being composed of HPGs A, B, D and the second cluster harboring HPGs C, E. To manifest genetic relatedness between wild Ovis gmelinii and domestic sheep haplogroups, their partial cytochrome B sequences were examined together on a median-joining network.