Relationships among some pines from subgenera pinus and strobus revealed by nuclear est-microsatellites

Genetic relationships among 12 taxa from subgenera Pinus and Strobus were studied through fourteen microsatellite markers, previously developed for Pinus taeda. To our knowledge, this is the first comparative study of pines using nuclear EST-microsatellites (EST-SSRs). The total number of detected alleles in all investigated taxa was 72 (5.14 in average). The numbers of alleles per locus and PIC values for estimated markers ranged from 3 to 7, and from 0.43 to 0.81, respectively. Presented results are in accordance with majority of previous genetic investigations and infrageneric classification of genus Pinus up to the sectional level, while subsectional position of some species has still not dismissed, especially regarding relict ones. According to nuclear EST-SSRs, Pinus heldreichii is in early-diverging position within subsection Pinaster and shows the greatest closeness with P. halepensis, while Pinus peuce doesn't have basal position within subsection Strobus being more close to P. strobus than to P. wallichiana. Furthermore, the closest connections in subsection Pinus were found between two Pinus nigra subspecies (dalmatica and nigra) as well as between P. sylvestris and P. mugo

Genetic divergence estimated by RAPD markers and its relationship with hybrid performance in popcorn

The objective of this study was to evaluate the genetic diversity of six popcorn inbred lines and to determine the relationship between combing ability and heterosis for grain yield and popping expansion and genetic distance, using random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) molecular markers. The genetic distance based on Dice coefficient ranged from 0.086 to 0.212. The highest genetic distance was found between inbreds ZPL2 and ZPL5. Hybrid combination of these two inbreds has the highest grain yield, grain yield heterosis and popping expansion heterosis. A positive and significant correlation was observed in parental lines between grain yield and SCA with genetic distance based on RAPD markers. The genetic divergence, however, was not enough to determine the grain yield heterosis as well as heterosis and specific combining ability for popping expansion

Determination of free phenolic acids from leaves within different colored maize

Along with other plant parts, maize leaves are widely used for making fermented food for cattle, known as silage. Since there have been only a few reports on studies concerning the extraction and determination of phenolic acids from maize leaves, the main goal of this experiment was to evaluate free phenolic acids content in leaves of fifteen different maize inbred lines. Reverse-phase high performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC), equipped with photodiode array detector (DAD), was performed. Under the optimization of chromatographic conditions, referring to short time of samples preparation, small quantities of solvent and direct injection of extract into HPLC, phenolic acids (i.e. gallic, protocatechuic, caffeic, p-coumaric and ferulic acid) were successfully separated in less than 25 min, indicating that the method can be applied for routine analysis. The efficiency and validation of the method was evaluated by measuring the rate of parameters: linearity, limit of detection and quantification, accuracy and precision. Results obtained revealed that the most abundant free phenolic acid was p-coumaric acid (23.57 μg g-1 dry weight), followed by ferulic and caffeic acids (21.27 and 20.78 μg g-1 dry weight, respectively). Principal Component Analysis (PCA) revealed the existence of link. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. TR31068 i br. TR31028