Genomic Selection for Fruit Quality Traits in Apple (Malus×domestica Borkh.)

The genome sequence of apple (Malus×domestica Borkh.) was published more than a year ago, which helped develop an 8K SNP chip to assist in implementing genomic selection (GS). In apple breeding programmes, GS can be used to obtain genomic breeding values (GEBV) for choosing next-generation parents or selections for further testing as potential commercial cultivars at a very early stage. Thus GS has the potential to accelerate breeding efficiency significantly because of decreased generation interval or increased selection intensity. We evaluated the accuracy of GS in a population of 1120 seedlings generated from a factorial mating design of four females and two male parents. All seedlings were genotyped using an Illumina Infinium chip comprising 8,000 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), and were phenotyped for various fruit quality traits. Random-regression best liner unbiased prediction (RR-BLUP) and the Bayesian LASSO method were used to obtain GEBV, and compared using a cross-validation approach for their accuracy to predict unobserved BLUP-BV. Accuracies were very similar for both methods, varying from 0.70 to 0.90 for various fruit quality traits. The selection response per unit time using GS compared with the traditional BLUP-based selection were very high (>100%) especially for low-heritability traits. Genome-wide average estimated linkage disequilibrium (LD) between adjacent SNPs was 0.32, with a relatively slow decay of LD in the long range (r2 = 0.33 and 0.19 at 100 kb and 1,000 kb respectively), contributing to the higher accuracy of GS. Distribution of estimated SNP effects revealed involvement of large effect genes with likely pleiotropic effects. These results demonstrated that genomic selection is a credible alternative to conventional selection for fruit quality traits

Medical student training and patient satisfaction in the internal medicine clinics of Imam Khomeini Hospital

Introduction: The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of Medical Student Training on patients satisfaction referred to the internal medicine clinics. Methods: This is a cross sectional descriptive study. 200 outpatients referred to the internal medicine clinic Imam Khomeini Hospital were selected by convenient sampling. The participants were divided into two groups. The group which firstly visited by a specialist and the group which firstly visited by intern and then a specialist. In this study, researcher made questionnaire was used for measuring the patient satisfaction. Data were analyzed by using one-sample t-test, independent t-test and pair-t test. Results: The finding showed that patients are satisfied of the presence and performance of medical interns in clinics and they preferred to be visited by intern and a specialist rather than only by a specialist (p<0.001, t=13.55). The satisfaction scores of the patients in the areas of description of personal issues, a doctor knowledge, involvement in treatment decisions, feeling of visitor comfort and understand the patient's feeling visited by an intern were higher than those who were visited by only a doctor. Also, the mean scores of the patient satisfaction in the dimensions of asking questions, understandable given information, complete treatment, compliance of respectable and understand competence of given information in patients who were visited by only a doctor were more than the patients who were visited by an intern (p<0.05, t= 1.99). Conclusion: It can be concluded that the training medical students in internal medicine clinic of hospitals can be an effective strategy for the rate of satisfaction level of patients from their treatment