Journal of Genetic Resources
Volume:2 Issue: 2, Summer-Autumn 2016

Recently, the formation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and reactive nitrogen species (RNS) have been implicated in the oxidative deterioration of food products as well as in the pathogenesis of several human diseases such atherosclerosis, diabetes mellitus, chronic inflammation, neurodegenerative disorders and certain types of cancer. Plant secondary metabolites mainly phenolics and flavonoids are commonly found in various fruits, vegetables and herbs. The plant-derived antioxidants may use as therapeutics for before mentioned diseases. They play this role through acting as reducing agents by donating hydrogen, acting as chelators, quenching singlet oxygen and scavenging free radicals. In the present study, four extracts of Platycladus orientalis (L.) Franco leaves by maceration in water, methanol, ethanol and ethyl acetate, were prepared and the antioxidant activities of the extracts have been investigated by DPPH method, H2O2 scavenging activity and reducing power assays. The total phenol and flavonoid contents of these extracts were determined and compared with their antioxidant potential. The results showed that antioxidant effect of these extracts is increased in the following order: water < ethyl-acetate < ethanol< methanol extract. Among the extracts, the methanol extract showed as strong extract in both DPPH radical (IC50: 11.45 µg/ml) and H2O2 (IC50: 49.9 µg/ml) scavenging activity assays. The ethanol extract was shown a highest reductive potential in comparison with other extracts. There was a positive and significant correlation between antioxidant properties and total phenol and flavonoid content of P. orientalis. It was concluded that the extracts of P. orientalis can use as a source of natural antioxidants in prevention of cellular oxidation.

Plant species diversity in Jokhaneh plain and the southern slope of Nil Mt. is investigated in order to determine the flora and life forms and chorotypes of plants in this area. The studied area is located in Kohgilouyeh va Boyerahmad province, covers 22’475 hectares and its average elevation is 2’315 m above sea level. In spite of a few studies in this region, broad knowledge of the flora of this area does not exist. In this study, plants were collected randomly along the growing seasons during 2015-2016. Vegetation of the studied area comprised of 157 species and 124 genera belonging to 42 families. Asteraceae, Lamiaceae and Poaceae were the most species-rich families. The most species-rich genera were Astragalus, Salvia, Scorzonera, Ranunculus, Galium and Bromus. Hemicryptophytes and therophytes were dominant life forms in this area. Endemic elements constitute 61% (92 species) of this flora, of which, 23 species were endemic to Irano-Turanian region. Species list of this area was both compared and combined with those of 27 more local floras in order to perform multivariate floristic analysis based on presence/absence data of 2039 plant species × 28 floras. Results showed that the set of local floras could be divided into four distinct clusters, showing geographical distribution of floristic diversity along NS, WE and center of the Zagros run. This study highlights the importance of the study area by introducing eleven species not previously collected from the region consisting 27 local floras, and also the importance of multivariate analyses in comparative floristic studies.

Sexual behavior in males is vulnerable to stress and it has been suggested that alterations in sexual behavior during stress is concomitant with spermatogenesis dysfunction. In this study, we investigated the effects of immobilization on sexual behavior and whether or not these effects are accompanied by changes in spermatogenesis process. The effect of antioxidant treatment on the sexual behavior and sperm count is also evaluated. 21 male mice were divided into the following three groups: control, immobilization stress (3 hours daily), and immobilization stress (3 hours daily) plus administration of 500 mg/kg of body weight vitamin C. Sexual behavior and sperm count were assessed after 60 days of stress and vitamin C treatment. Mount latency increased significantly, and the number of mounts showed significantly decreased in males exposed to immobilization but not in vitamin C treated mice. Moreover, sperm count decreased significantly in the stressed group but mice administrated vitamin C did not show a significant reduction in the number of sperms as compared with control unstressed animals. These results indicate that stress has great effects on sexual behavior and sperm count. Interestingly, administration of vitamin C resulted in a reversal in stress-induced inhibition in sexual behavior parameters, and sperm counts.

Recently, the epigenetic modifications have been recognized as a regulator of gene expression in various cancers. EZH2 gene is one the most important component of the PRC2 complex. Overexpression of EZH2 was identified in multiple cancers that considered more attractive the EZH2 role as an oncogene. Some studies report that EZH2 contributes to various aspects of colorectal cancer (CRC). However accurate evaluation of the role of EZH2 in the CRC cancer requires more extensive study. In this study, we treated HCT116 cells with the transduction of EZH2-shRNA. Here we observed that the expression level of EZH2 was lower in the treatment cell groups compared to control cells groups. We also found that inhibiting ezh2 induced caspase-3 gene expression, while no significant change was observed in the expression of BAX gene. Caspase-3 and BAX play a central role in the cell apoptosis. In addition, we found that downregulation of the Ezh2 gene decreased cell proliferation in CRC cells. Collectively, our results suggest that the reduced expression of Ezh2 altered the caspase-3 gene expression that could indicate the increase of apoptosis in HCT116 cells, which we suggest to direct effect on decreased cell growth. Meanwhile, suggest that EZH2 can be a useful target for therapy and poor prognosis in cancer.

In the recent years, there is evidence of training a red type of zebrafish which differs from wild-type in body color. There is not any document how it reaches to the ornamental fish farms of Iran but at first, it was a doubt it belongs to a morphotype or genetic modification (GM). First of all, a set primer was designed to validate zebrafish species. Mitochondrial 16srDNA was selected and amplified. The validation of 16S rDNA gene sequences data detected three haplotypes deposited in the GenBank. By seeking scientific articles about transgenic zebrafish, the first attention went to Glowfish (color transgenic zebrafish). We decided to build a foundation of PCR based detection for finding a gene correspondence red color of zebrafish. This sequence is specific for producing a red color in the sea anemone and it was not in genome database of wild zebrafish. A set primer was designed according to the red color of sea anemone (dsRed) to make a fragment of 680 bp in red zebrafish and cream zebrafish specimens (they had red parents). Fragment sequencing (ds/Red) revealed that it belongs to the sea anemone and none of the samples nucleotides differ from each order and positive sequence from a plasmid containing dsRed. Also, protein samples from cream and red zebrafish were extracted and evaluated with fluorescence microscope by TxRed control color. A dark and a red spread was detected for protein smear of the cream and redfish respectively. A dark spread was detected for cream fish protein smear but a red smear was marked for redfish protein. This research simply demonstrates the existence of transgenic zebrafish in Iranian ornamental fish industry.

The role of microRNAs (miRs) is shown as a biomarker whose expression level changes have been associated with cancer development and progression. Circulating miRNAs have been postulated as biomarkers for breast cancer. Detection and diagnosis of miRNA markers could provide an improved and sensitive method in the clinical application. In this study, we applied and improved the effective approach by coupling a deoxyuridine-incorporated RT oligonucleotide with a secondary structure and a mimic PCR for assessment and direct detection of circulating miRs in serum. We designed mut miR-16, mut miR-145, and mut miR-223 as mimic miRs. These mimic miRs were used in RT-PCR for detection and quantification assay. As normalization of these mut miRs was performed with themselves, our mimic construct with 80 bp of these miRs shows the best normalization for this method in blood samples. This assay was tested in serum from 15 patients with different stages of breast cancer and 10 healthy female donors. According to our results, using a combination of miR-16 and miR-145 could represent as one of the best biomarker (p

Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) is one of the devastating plant viruses in the world that infects more than 200 plant species. Movement protein plays a supportive role in the movement of other plant viruses, and viral coat protein is highly expressed in infected plants and affects replication and movements of TMV. In order to investigate genetic variation in the terminal fragment sequence in Iranian TMV isolate, viral RNA was extracted from the infected tobacco leaves and cDNA was constructed using a specific antisense primer, PSh60-R1. The coding sequence of movement protein and coat protein was amplified and bi-directionally sequenced using PSH63-F/R primers. The results from sequencing were analyzed by Vector NTi software, and the nucleotide sequence was aligned with other TMV isolates of Iran using MEGA 5 and CLC Main Workbenches. Based on the results, the comparison between sequences of movement protein from TMV-ir and movement protein sequence of TMV-U1 reveals six mutations. Also, nucleotide comparison reveals that there are two mutations between coat protein sequence of TMV-ir and TMV-U1. Based on sequencing results, there is the minimum nucleotide distance between TMV-ir and TMV-U1 and maximum distance between isolates of Iran (Br50, TO79, TO32, TA, PU1, TM, G42, TV). Based on the results, we report a new isolate of TMV from Iran that genetically distinct with other Iranian isolates. These results provide good knowledge that could be valuable in designing detection kits and plant breeding programs.