Aluminum (Al) toxicity is a serious factor restricting crop productivity in acid soil, and Al is the major cause of phytotoxicity. However, the role of Al toxicity in interprimer binding site (iPBS) polymorphism, genomic instability, and DNA methylation has not been fully investigated. In the current study, the effects of different Al concentrations on iPBS polymorphism, genomic instability, and DNA methylation were investigated in seedlings of three wheat cultivars: Haymana 79, Kılçıksız, and Bezostaja 1. A higher aluminum concentration increased the polymorphism rate of the iPBS profile, but decreased genomic template stability in all cultivars. A higher Al concentration was found to cause DNA methylation. Furthermore, the coupled restriction enzyme digestion-iPBS technique was used to detect DNA cytosine methylation level, which could help in understanding the epigenetic mechanism. The occurrence of hypermethylation and hypomethylation was observed with respect to Al stress treatment, and Al was found to cause DNA methylation. Polymorphism in the CRED-iPBS profile and DNA methylation can be correlated to evaluate epigenetic changes under stress.

Salinity is an edaphic stress that dramatically restricts worldwide crop production. Nanomaterials and plant growth-promoting bacteria (PGPB) are currently used to alleviate the negative effects of various stresses on plant growth and development. This study investigates the protective effects of different levels of zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO-NPs) (0, 20, and 40 mg L−1) and PGPBs (no bacteria, Bacillus subtilis, Lactobacillus casei, Bacillus pumilus) on DNA damage and cytosine methylation changes in the tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L. ‘Linda’) seedlings under salinity stress (250 mM NaCl). Coupled Restriction Enzyme Digestion-Random Amplification (CRED-RA) and Randomly Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD) approaches were used to analyze changes in cytosine methylation and to determine how genotoxic effects influence genomic stability. Salinity stress increased the polymorphism rate assessed by RAPD, while PGPB and ZnO-NPs reduced the adverse effects of salinity stress. Genomic template stability was increased by the PGPBs and ZnO-NPs application; this increase was significant when Lactobacillus casei and 40 mg L−1 of ZnO-NPs were used.A decreased level of DNA methylation was observed in all treatments. Taken together, the use of PGPB and ZnO-NPs had a general positive effect under salinity stress reducing genetic impairment in tomato seedlings.

No abstract

Quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa Willd.) is a nutritionally important plant with a good protein quality and a high concentration of vitamins and minerals. It has been cultured for several thousand years in South America. In this study, we investigated the use of inter-primer binding site (iPBS) for the molecular characterization of 17 quinoa genotypes (Chenopodium quinoa Willd.) cultivated in Turkey. For this purpose, 25 iPBS markers were employed, and six primers provided sufficient polymorphic data generating a total of 19 alleles with an average of 2.83 bands/primer. The number of iPBS bands per individual was calculated as 1.12. The rate of polymorphism information content ranged from 0.02 to 0.49 with an average of 0.20. Genetic associations were assessed using the Dice dissimilarity coefficient between different pairs of accessions and revealed an average value of 0.84 for the French population and Q-52 genotypes. Cluster analysis on the unweighted pair-group mean average divided the 17 quinoa genotypes into two major clusters. The results of the principal component analysis were in agreement with those of the cluster analysis. The highest number of alleles, Nei's genetic diversity, and Shannon's information index were obtained from the French Vanilla genotype at 1.99, 0.50 and 0.69, respectively, whereas the lowest values were observed in the Q-52 genotype at 1.10, 0.09 and 0.20, respectively. The expected heterozygosity ranged from 0.398 in the first sub-population to 0.140 in the second subpopulation with an average of 0.269. The mean population differentiation measurement (Fst) values of the sub-populations were 0.048 and 0.676 for the first and second sub-populations, respectively. The results of this study provide useful information for the management of the quinoa germplasm and contribute to the improvement of existing breeding approaches. They also presented the iPBS marker system as a suitable tool for identification and genetic diversity analysis of quinoa genotypes.

Wheat, which is scientifically known as Triticum aestivum L., is a very nutritious grain that serves as a key component of the human diet. The use of mutation breeding as a tool for crop improvement is a reasonably rapid procedure, and it generates a variety that may be used in selective breeding programs as well as functional gene investigations. The present experiment was used to evaluate the potential application of a conventional chemical mutagenesis technique via sodium azide (NaN3) for the germination and seedling growth stage in wheat. Experiments with NaN3 mutagenesis were conducted using four different treatment periods (0, 1, 2, and 3 h) and five different concentrations (0, 0.5, 1, 1.5, and 2 mM). The genomic instability and cytosine methylation of wheat using its seeds were investigated after they were treated. In order to evaluate the genomic instability and cytosine methylation in wheat that had been treated, interprimer binding site (iPBS) markers were used. The mutagenic effects of NaN3 treatments had considerable polymorphism on a variety of impacts on the cytosine methylation and genomic instability of wheat plants. The results of the experiment showed considerable changes in the iPBS profiles produced by the administration of the same treatments at different dosages and at different times. Coupled restriction enzyme digestion interprimer binding site (CRED-iPBS) assays identified changes in gDNA cytosine methylation. The highest polymorphism value was obtained during 1 h + 2 mM NaN3, while the lowest (20.7%) was obtained during 1 h + 1.5 mM NaN3. Results showed that treatments with NaN3 had an effect on the level of cytosine methylation and the stability of the genomic template in wheat plants in the germination stage. Additionally, an integrated method can be used to for mutation-assisted breeding using a molecular marker system in wheat followed by the selection of desired mutants.