Copper (Cu) and Cobalt (Co) are among the most toxic heavy metals from mining and other industrial activities. Both are known to pose serious environmental concerns, particularly to water resources, if not properly treated. In recent years several filamentous fungal strains have been isolated, identified and assessed for their heavy metal biosorption capacity for potential application in bioremediation of Cu and Co wastes. Despite the growing interest in heavy metal removal by filamentous fungi, their exploitation faces numerous challenges such as finding suitable candidates for biosorption. Based on current findings, various strains of filamentous fungi have high metal uptake capacity, particularly for Cu and Co. Several works indicate that Trichoderma, Penicillium, and Aspergillus species have higher Cu and Co biosorption capacity compared to other fungal species such as Geotrichum, Monilia, and Fusarium. It is believed that far more fungal species with even higher biosorption capability are yet to be isolated. Furthermore, the application of filamentous fungi for bioremediation is considered environmentally friendly, highly effective, reliable, and affordable, due to their low technology pre-requisites. In this review, we highlight the capacity of various identified filamentous fungal isolates for biosorption of copper and cobalt from various environments, as well as their future prospects.
Potato is an economically important agro-industrial crop that is conventionally propagated, however; its potential transmission of viruses through seed tubers from generation to generation is a major limitation of potato yield production. In order to produce potato virus-free and sufficient amount of potato seed tubers, several approaches of in vitro methods for virus elimination have been developed. Meristem culture has been used alone or combined with techniques such as thermotherapy, electrotherapy, cryotherapy and chemotherapy as the best alternative method for treating potato infected by viruses. Recent literature has shown that to eliminate potato virus significantly depends upon the potato cultivar, antiviral agents, type of virus, the duration of heat treatment. Appropriate duration for efficiency elimination is still under investigation. Viral elimination rate can be detected through serological methods such as enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and molecular biology technique such as real time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (real time RT-PCR) that are used for pre and post elimination virus detection to evaluate the efficiency and the accuracy of virus elimination method. The purpose of this review is to highlight virus elimination methods in potato and recommending the most effective tool for virus detection in order to ensure the production of potato plantlet free of viruses. Resumen La papa es un cultivo de importancia económica agro-industrial que se propaga de manera convencional, no obstante, la potencial transmisión de virus a través del tubérculo-semilla de generación en generación es una limitación mayor en la producción del rendimiento. Con el fin de producir papa libre de virus y suficiente cantidad de tubérculo-semilla de papa, se han desarrollado varias estrategias de métodos in vitro para la eliminación de los virus. El cultivo de meristemos se ha usado solo o combinado con técnicas tales como termoterapia, electroterapia, crioterapia y quimioterapia, como el mejor método alternativo para tratar papa infectada por virus. La literatura reciente ha demostrado que para eliminar virus significativamente se depende de la variedad de papa, agentes antivirales, tipo de virus, la duración del tratamiento térmico. Aun esta bajo investigación la duración apropiada para la eliminación eficiente. El nivel de la eliminación del virus puede detectarse por métodos serológicos, tales como el inmunoensayo con enzimas conjugadas (ELISA) y técnica de biología molecular, como la reverso-transcripción de reacción en cadena de la polimerasa en tiempo real (RT-PCR) que se usan para la detección del virus pre y post eliminación para evaluar la eficiencia y la precisión del método de eliminación del virus. El propósito de esta revisión es resaltar los métodos de eliminación de virus en papa y en la recomendación de la herramienta más efectiva para la detección de virus para asegurar la producción de plántulas de papa libres de virus.
Genetic variation is important in breeding programs because it determines the amount of gain from selection. This study was conducted to determine the magnitude of genetic diversity in coffee (Coffea arabica L.) accessions for developing superior cultivars in Rwanda. Twenty-one coffee accessions established in 1990 in an un-replicated field experiment at the Rubona Experimental Station of the Rwanda Agriculture Board (RAB) located in the mid-altitude zone of Rwanda, were used in the study. Data were recorded on three randomly selected trees on eight quantitative morphological traits in each accession in 2013. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) indicated highly significant (p < 0.01) differences among the accessions for number of primary branches, number of leaves per branch, number of cherries per internode and % coffee leaf rust disease rating; and significant (p < 0.05) for yield, but not for internode length, weight of 100 cherries, and number of internodes per branch. Multivariate analysis showed that the first three principal components contributed cumulatively to 78.3% of the total variation. The PCA biplot grouped all the accessions into three different clusters and one singleton. The first and second PCs accounted for 43% and 21%, respectively. Cluster I and II grouped accessions with valuable quantitative agronomic traits while accessions in cluster III exhibited poor agronomic performance. The highest inter cluster distance of 475 was observed between cluster I and II, and the highest intra-cluster distance (62) was in cluster II. The phenotypic markers provided a useful measure of genetic distances among the coffee accessions and identified potential donors for future breeding efforts.
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