BOOTSIE – ESTIMATION OF COEFFICIENT OF VARIATION OF AFLP DATA BY BOOTSTRAP ANALYSIS

Bootsie is an English-native replacement for ASG Coelho\u27s “DBOOT” utility for estimating coefficient of variation of a population of AFLP marker data using bootstrapping. Bootsie improves on DBOOT by supporting batch processing, time-to-completion estimation, builtin graphs, and a suite of export tools for creating data files for other population genetics software

Flowering traits in non‐transformed wildtype line (60444) and in the four independent transformants.

<p>(a) Flowering time in days from establishment in soil to flowering at the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd tier of flowering, as defined by fork-type branching at the apical meristems. (b) Number of shoot nodes to forking events where inflorescences develop. The number of nodes between the soil surface and the first fork, between the first-tier and second-tier forks, and between the second- and third-tier forks. (c) Number of flowers per tier, per plant. (d) Time to start of floral and/or inflorescence senescence. Floral traits were recorded weekly to determine the date of inflorescence appearance, and initial date of floral senescence. The total number of days from flower appearance to start of inflorescence and/or flower senescence was calculated from these weekly records. Shown are the means ± SEM.</p

Schematic representation of the transformation vector.

<p><i>Arabidopsis FT</i> cDNA was inserted into the construct through Gateway cloning. pAnos, nopaline synthase polyadenylation signal; pat, phosphinothricin acetyltransferase; Tnos, terminator of nopaline synthase; pAlcA, promoter of alcohol dehydrogenase I (Adh-I) encoded by the <i>alc</i>A gene; <i>FT</i> cDNA, cDNA of Flowering Locus (FT) gene; pA35S, polyadenylation sequence of Cauliflower mosaic virus 35S gene; nos, nopaline synthase terminator; ALCR, transcriptional factor which binds to <i>AlcA promoter</i>; p35S, Cauliflower Mosaic Virus 35S promoter; LB, left border; RB, right border.</p

Nonenzymatic β‑Carotene Degradation in Provitamin A‑Biofortified Crop Plants

Provitamin A biofortification, the provision of provitamin A carotenoids through agriculture, is regarded as an effective and sustainable intervention to defeat vitamin A deficiency, representing a global health problem. This food-based intervention has been questioned in conjunction with negative outcomes for smokers and asbestos-exposed populations of the CARET and ATBC trials in which very high doses of β-carotene were supplemented. The current notion that β-carotene cleavage products (apocarotenoids) represented the harmful agents is the basis of the here-presented research. We quantitatively analyzed numerous plant food items and concluded that neither the amounts of apocarotenoids nor β-carotene provided by plant tissues, be they conventional or provitamin A-biofortified, pose an increased risk. We also investigated β-carotene degradation pathways over time. This reveals a substantial nonenzymatic proportion of carotene decay and corroborates the quantitative relevance of highly oxidized β-carotene polymers that form in all plant tissues investigated

Root and shoot production in non‐transformed wildtype (60444) and the four independent transformants at harvest.

<p>(a) Storage-root dry weight; (b) total plant dry weight; (c) harvest index (HI), calculated as HI = (storage-root dry mass)/ [(storage-root dry mass) + (above-ground dry mass)]; (d) number of storage-roots. Shown are the means ± SEM.</p

Expression of Arabidopsis <i>FT</i> gene in cassava.

<p>The qRT-PCR results were obtained from four biological replicates and two technical replicates for each sample. 60444 represents the non‐transformed wildtype line and FT-02, FT-11, FT-13 and FT-17 represent the four independent transformants. The levels of detected amplification were normalized using 18S and Ubiquitin as reference genes. The expression cassette had an ethanol‐inducible promoter. In each case, potted cassava transgenic plants were either watered normally (H₂O), or the soil was drenched with 1% (v/v) ethanol for two weeks before leaves were harvested and analyzed.</p

Transformed and non-transformed plants at various stages of floral development.

<p>(a): FT-17 transgenic plant at 2 months <i>in vitro</i>. (b and c): FT-17 transgenic plantlet at one month after transfer from <i>in vitro</i> to culture box and soil respectively. (d): Advanced stage transgenic plants flowering at 3 months. (e): Non-transformed (left) vs. transformed (right) plants at 5 months old. (f and g): Close up view of the apical region of 5-month old non-transformed (f) and transformed (g) plants, respectively. Arrows indicate flowers.</p

Pairwise Fisher distance (<i>F</i>_<i>D</i>) and genetic differentiation (<i>F</i>_<i>ST</i>) between subpopulations, effective population size (<i>Ne</i>) and number of monomorphic loci for each subpopulation (Nπ) out of 3,675 SNP.

<p>Pairwise <i>F</i>_<i>D</i> are presented above the diagonal and pairwise <i>F</i>_<i>ST</i> below the diagonal.</p><p>*, ** and ***: significant with <i>p</i> < 0.01, 0.001 and 0.0001, respectively; NS: non-significant.</p><p>Pairwise Fisher distance (<i>F</i>_<i>D</i>) and genetic differentiation (<i>F</i>_<i>ST</i>) between subpopulations, effective population size (<i>Ne</i>) and number of monomorphic loci for each subpopulation (Nπ) out of 3,675 SNP.</p

Mean correlation between GEBV obtained by cross validation of the training data set (Yp) and the observed BLUP values of the validation data sets (Yo).

<p>The results for flowering date (FL) and plant height (PH) and 15 incidence matrices are presented.</p

Mean correlation between GEBV obtained by cross validation of the training data set (Yp) and the observed BLUP values of the validation data sets (Yo).

<p>Results presented for 2 traits, 9 incidence matrices and 3 k-fold cross validation experiments.</p