Potential for Glufosinate as a Selective Herbicide for Red Rice Control in BAR-transformed Rice.

A three year study was conducted to evaluate the herbicide glufosinate on BAR-transformed rice and on the weed red rice. Preliminary evaluations with 1.1 and 2.2 kg/ha glufosinate on the BAR-transformed Gulfmont and Koshihikari rice varieties showed that both were resistant, but there was more injury to Koshihikari. Glufosinate at 2.2 kg ai/ha injured BAR-transformed Gulfmont rice more when applied to the 1- to 2-leaf stage (23-26%) than when applied to 3- to 4-leaf (13-19%) plants. The damage was least with boot stage applications (3-14%). Phytotoxicity to BAR-transformed Gulfmont rice was greater when 2.2 kg/ha glufosinate was combined with 0.4 kg/ha triclopyr (59%) or 0.6 kg/ha acifluorfen (22%) than with glufosinate alone. Single applications of 1.1 kg/ha glufosinate to the 3- to 4-leaf stage of non-transformed red rice resulted in greater control (91%) than applications at the panicle initiation (74%) or boot stages (77%). Glufosinate efficacy was reduced when red rice was submerged in water to 25 to 50% of its height at application. Red rice was controlled 92% with either 3.4 kg/ha propanil or 0.6 kg/ha acifluorfen mixed with 0.6 kg/ha glufosinate, which was greater than for glufosinate alone and other tested combinations. Greenhouse studies on cross resistance of BAR-transformed Gulfmont rice in comparison to non-transformed Gulfmont rice and red rice showed that injury due to metolachlor, trifluralin, glyphosate, sulfosate, paraquat, and imazethapyr was similar on all rice types. In baseline resistance studies, I\sb{50} values for visual injury of non-transformed Gulfmont and Koshihikari were 0.13 and 0.06 kg/ha, respectively. Ammonia accumulation was greater in Koshihikari than Gulfmont rice. Reciprocal crosses were made in the greenhouse between the BAR-transformed Gulfmont and Koshihikari varieties and non-transformed red rice, to assess the inheritance of the transgene. F\sb2 populations segregated as a ratio of 3 (resistant):1 (susceptible), confirming that the glufosinate resistance gene was inserted into a single chromosomal locus or closely linked loci

Toll Evolution: A Perspective from Regulatory Regions

Submitted to the faculty of Indiana University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Science in the department of Bioinformatics in School of Informatics of Indiana University 29 January, 2004Background: Toll and Toll-related proteins play an important role in antibacterial innate immunity and are widespread in insects, plants, and mammals. The completion of new genomes such as Anopheles gambiae has provided an avenue for a deeper understanding of Toll evolution. While most evolutionary analyses are performed on protein sequences, here, we present a unique phylogenetic analysis of Toll genes from the perspective of upstream regulatory regions so as to study the importance of evolutionary information inherited in such sequences. Results: In a comparative study, phylogeny on the protein products of Toll like genes showed consistency with earlier literature except for the single point of divergence between insects and mammals. On the other hand, the phylogeny based on upstream regulatory sequences (-3000 to +10) showed a broader distinction between the plants and the rest, though the tree was not well resolved probably due to poor alignment of these sequences. The phylogeny based on TFBs necessitated the development of a supervised statistical approach to determine their “evolutionary informativeness”. Employing the frequency of evolutionarily informative TFBs, a phylogeny was derived using pair-wise distances. It suggested a closer relationship between Anopheles and plants than to Drosophila and a significant homology among mammalian TLRs. Conclusions: A unique approach of using TFBs in studying evolution of Toll genes has been developed. Broadly, this approach showed results similar to the protein phylogeny. The inclusion of the evolutionary information from TFBs may be relevant to such analyses due to the selective pressure of conservation in upstream sequences