North American Wild Relatives of Grain Crops

The wild-growing relatives of the grain crops are useful for long-term worldwide crop improvement research. There are neglected examples that should be accessioned as living seeds in gene banks. Some of the grain crops, amaranth, barnyard millet, proso millet, quinoa, and foxtail millet, have understudied unique and potentially useful crop wild relatives in North America. Other grain crops, barley, buckwheat, and oats, have fewer relatives in North America that are mostly weeds from other continents with more diverse crop wild relatives. The expanding abilities of genomic science are a reason to accession the wild species since there are improved ways to study evolution within genera and make use of wide gene pools. Rare wild species, especially quinoa relatives in North American, should be acquired by gene banks in cooperation with biologists that already study and conserve at-risk plant populations. Many of the grain crop wild relatives are weeds that have evolved herbicide resistance that could be used in breeding new herbicide-resistant cultivars, so well-documented examples should be accessioned and also vouchered in gene banks

Analysis of Genetic Variation in CD40 and CD40L: Relationship with mRNA Relative Expression and Soluble Proteins in Acute Coronary Syndrome

Acute coronary syndrome (ACS) can be triggered by the presence of inflammatory factors which promote the activation of immune cells by costimulatory molecules such as CD40 and its ligand CD40L. Environmental and genetic factors are involved in the etiology of the ACS. The aim of this study was to explore the gene and protein expression associated with CD40 and CD40L genetic variants in ACS patients from the western Mexican population. A total of 620 individuals from western Mexico were recruited: 320 ACS patients and 300 individuals without a history of ischemic cardiopathy were evaluated. The genotype was determined using TaqMan SNP genotyping assays. CD40 and CD40L expressions at the mRNA level were quantified using TaqMan Gene Expression Assays. Soluble protein isoforms were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. We did not find evidence of association between CD40 (rs1883832, rs4810485, and rs11086998) and CD40L (rs3092952 and rs3092920) genetic variants and susceptibility to ACS, although rs1883832 and rs4810485 were significantly associated with high sCD40 plasma levels. Plasma levels of sCD40L can be affected by gender and the clinical spectrum of acute coronary syndrome. Our results do not suggest a functional role of CD40 and CD40L genetic variants in ACS. However, they could reflect the inflammatory process and platelet activation in ACS patients, even when they are under pharmacological therapy. Due to the important roles of the CD40-CD40L system in the pathogenesis of ACS, longitudinal studies are required to determine if soluble levels of CD40 and CD40L could be clinically useful markers of a recurrent cardiovascular event after an ACS

Gypsum and Plant Species: A Marvel of Cuatro Ciénegas and the Chihuahuan Desert

Soils rich in gypsum (CaSO4·2H2O) are both a challenge for plant growth and a trigger for plant evolution. Plants that grow only on this type of soils are known as gypsophiles, but there are also generalists that grow on and off gypsum, known as gypsovags. The Cuatro Ciénegas municipality (CCM) in Coahuila is characterized by a complex mosaic of soils with different gypsum contents, ranging from massive, ancient gypsum evaporite bedrock, crystalline selenite, and anhydrite to very recent formations of secondary evaporites, often mixed with other salts, and gypsum dunes. These exposures of gypsum (gypsum outcrops) host a species-rich gypsophilic flora that has mostly been described in only the last 50 years, and aside from the well-known gypsum deposits of Cuatro Ciénegas Basin (CCB) is still imperfectly known. To date there is no available comprehensive synthesis for where the gypsum outcrops occur within CCM or for the vascular plant species growing on them. In this chapter we use remote sensing techniques to reveal botanically unexplored gypsum outcrops and we present a checklist for the vascular plant species currently known to occur on gypsum outcrops within CCM. We report 297 species in 187 genera and 60 families of vascular plants growing on gypsum outcrops in the CCM, of which 31 species are gypsophiles, five are halogypsophiles (species that grow on soils with a mixture of sodium chloride and gypsum), and three are either gypsophiles or halogypsophiles; 15 are endemic to the municipality. Our results demonstrate that the method presented here for detecting potential gypsum outcrops is powerful, that CCM has an outstanding number of potential gypsum outcrops, many of which are unexplored botanically. The relatively high number of gypsophiles in CCM and the fact that new taxa continue to be discovered clearly indicate the need for continued botanical exploration of gypsum environments in the Cuatro Ciénegas region and in Coahuila and the Chihuahuan Desert as a whole