Journal of Genetic Resources
Volume:1 Issue: 2, Summer-Autumn 2015

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is an opportunistic pathogen that causes a variety of infections in compromised patients. The ability of Pseudomonas aeruginosa to produce chronic infection is based in part on its ability to biosynthesis of biofilm, and alginate is the major polysaccharide in the synthesized biofilm. So alginate degradation is very essential in the dispersion of Pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilm. Alginate lyase is an important enzyme in alginate degradation. This enzyme is different, especially with respect to molecular weight, pI and substrate specificity in various bacteria and even in various strains of a bacterium. The amount of alginate in mucoid strains is more than in nonmucoid strains. In this study, P. aeruginosa strain 214 was selected because it forms highly mucoidal colonies and thus it is a good candidate for alginate lyase preparation. Alginate lyase was extracted from the periplasmic space of P. aeruginosa by the use of heat shock method. Thiobarbitoric acid assay was used for measuring the activity of alginate lyase. This enzyme showed the most activity in Tryptic Soy Broth (TSB) medium. The optimum concentration of sodium alginate was 0.02 mg/ml and the optimum activity of the enzyme was found in 20 min reaction time at 37°C. The enzyme was purified by a simple two-step procedure; ammonium sulfate precipitation and ion exchange column chromatography DEAE-Sepharose Cl-6B. Sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) suggested a molecular weight of approximately 40 kDa for alginate lyase.

Erodium (Geranaiceae) species are distributed in different habitats of Iran. Some species are of medicinal importance while some are well known weeds. There are no chromosome counts for Erdoium species of Iran. Chromosome numbers are given for six taxa of Erodium (Geraniaceae) from Iran: E. cicutarium (2n=36), E. ciconium(2n=18), E. malacoides (2n=20), E. moschatum (2n=20), E. neuradifolium (2n=20) and E. oxyrrhynchum (2n=20). Chromosome numbers of six studied taxa were recorded for the first time from Iran. Dispolidy is recorded for E. cicutarium for the first time. Observed chromosome numbers are mainly in concordant with previous data. Different ploidy in each species was not observed.

Section Gamosepalum has been reported from Turkey for the first time by Dudley. In recent years, several species of this section were reported as new records for Iran. Four species of Alyssum section are tranfered from sect. Alyssum to sect. Gamosepalum with considering of important characters in each section. These changes made two synonymies. Five species of Gamosepalum section including A. lanceolatum, A. persicum, A. lepidoto-stellatum, A. mulleri and A. baumgartnerianum are present in Iran. Identification key of accepted species and distribution map of them are given. All specimens examined in the present work are deposited at FUMH, G, TARI and W.

In order to identify drought stress tolerance in rapeseed, nine commercial rapeseed cultivars (Opera, Karaj1, Karaj2, Karaj3, Zarfam, Okapi, Talayeh, Licord and Modena) were evaluated under two conditions (normal and drought stress) in Kangavar region in the west Iran in 2014-2015 growing season. This research was carried out in a split plot experiment based on completely randomized design in four replications. Under drought stress conditions, irrigation was cut from end of flowering stage. Analysis of variance results showed that drought stress had significant effects on plant height, days to maturity, pods per main branch, pods per sub-branch, pods per plant, seeds per pod, 1000 seed weight, oil yield and seed yield. Seed yield reduced from 4036.9 to 2919.4 kg/ha (27.68%) and Oil yield reduced from 1840.8 to 1362.2 kg/ha (25.99%) caused by drought stress. Oil yield reduced from 1840.8 to 1362.2 kg/ha (25.99%) caused by drought stress. Meanwhile pods per sub-branch reduced more than other traits (27.93%). There were significant differences among cultivars for all studied traits. The Karaj3 and Talaye cultivars showed the highest seed yield in normal (4632.5 kg/ha) and stress (3747.5 kg/ha) conditions respectively. The interaction effects of cultivar and irrigation conditions was significant just for plant height (P

Three subspecies of Mus musculus have been recognized in Iran so far. The house mouse (genus0T 0T2TMus2T, species0T 0T2TMus musculus2T) are recognized for their highly conserved morphology and chromosomal structure, but some chromosomal characters offer accurate taxonomic markers in this species that has been shown any unambiguous diagnostic morphological traits. Among the chromosomal characters, centromeric heterochromatin is more useful to identify mouse subspecies and populations. 0T 0TIn this study, Samples were collected from 27 stations in Iran and study was performed by the centromeric heterochromatin banding (C-banding). Results indicated that all samples had 40 acrocentric chromosomes and all chromosomes had fixed position for the centromere. The strains had the same amount of C-banding material on homologous chromosomes but showed variation in the amount on different populations.

The genus Fritillaria comprises of 165 taxa of medicinal, ornamental and horticultural importance. Evolutionary relationships in this genus is an interesting research area, attracting many researchers. In this study, phylogenetic relationships among 18 native to endemic species in Iran belonging to four subgenera Petilium, Theresia, Rhinopetalum and Fritillaria, are assessed using chloroplast trnH-psbA IGS sequences. Fifteen variable morphological characters are studied, and used in constructing a numerical classification. Results of molecular data showed that subgenus Fritillaria in Iran was a polyphyletic group. Members of the section Olostyleae appeared as paraphyletic. Species non-monophyly was revisited for Fritillaria crassifolia. Both morphological and molecular data show that Fritillaria zagrica and Fritillaria pinardii were closely related taxa, although they may be retain as separate species based on some morphological differences. Multivariate analysis of morphological data arranged the species in consistent groups as with the phylogenetic tree based on sequence data. Results of this study revealed feasibility of the trnH-psbA sequences for contribution in phylogenetic reconstruction in the genus Fritillaria.Keywords: Fritillaria, Iran, Morphology, Phylogenetic, trnH-psbA

Catharanthus roseus is a medicinal and ornamental plant with growing attention toward its economical value. Cell suspension from C. roseus were treated with 0 to 60mM of cadmium nitrate for 1, 3 and 6 days, then cell viability was determined using trypan blue and MTT assay. Cell morphology was investigated using 0, 10, 30 and 50 mM of cadmium nitrate as selected dose for 3 days. Callus of C.roseus was treated with selected doses for same period to estimate the hydrogen peroxide content, level of lipid peroxidation, proline content and the activity of superoxide dismutase, catalase and peroxidase as well as protein profile. In addition, the production of total alkaloid, flavonoid and phenolic compounds was estimated. Data was analyzed using one-way ANOVA, Duncan test and p