Background: Triticum aestivum (wheat) is one of the world's oldest crops and has been used for >8000 years as a food crop in North Africa, West Asia and Europe. Today, wheat is one of the most important sources of grain for humans, and is cultivated on greater areas of land than any other crop. As the human population increases and soil salinity becomes more prevalent, there is increased pressure on wheat breeders to develop salt-tolerant varieties in order to meet growing demands for yield and grain quality. Here we developed a mutant wheat population using the moderately salt-tolerant Bangladeshi variety BARI Gom-25, with the primary goal of further increasing salt tolerance. Results: After titrating the optimal ethyl methanesulfonate (EMS) concentration, ca 30,000 seeds were treated with 1% EMS, and 1676 lines, all originating from single seeds, survived through the first four generations. Most mutagenized lines showed a similar phenotype to BARI Gom-25, although visual differences such as dwarfing, giant plants, early and late flowering and altered leaf morphology were seen in some lines. By developing an assay for salt tolerance, and by screening the mutagenized population, we identified 70 lines exhibiting increased salt tolerance. The selected lines typically showed a 70% germination rate on filter paper soaked in 200 mM NaCl, compared to 0-30% for BARI Gom-25. From two of the salt-tolerant OlsAro lines (OA42 and OA70), genomic DNA was sequenced to 15x times coverage. A comparative analysis against the BARI Gom-25 genomic sequence identified a total of 683,201 (OA42), and 768,954 (OA70) SNPs distributed throughout the three sub-genomes (A, B and D). The mutation frequency was determined to be approximately one per 20,000 bp. All the 70 selected salttolerant lines were tested for root growth in the laboratory, and under saline field conditions in Bangladesh. The results showed that all the lines selected for tolerance showed a better salt tolerance phenotype than both BARI Gom-25 and other local wheat varieties tested. Conclusion: The mutant wheat population developed here will be a valuable resource in the development of novel salt-tolerant varieties for the benefit of saline farming.

Background There is a worldwide interest in the use of Cannabis sativa for biomedicine purposes. Cannabis has ethnomedicinal usage as a natural medicine in Bangladesh and cultivated during the British Empire period for revenues. Objective Folk medicine practitioners (FMPs) from different districts of Bangladesh have been using Cannabis sativa, but until now there have not been any compiled studies particularly regarding this practice. Hence, this review is an effort to retrieve the traditional usage of Cannabis sativa as a phytomedicine from published ethnomedicinal studies. Methods and materials Information was searched by using the search terms “ethnomedicinal Cannabis sativa and Bangladesh”; “Bangladesh cannabaceae and ethnomedicinal survey”; “ganja, bhang and folk medicine Bangladesh”; “tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), cannabinoid and therapeutic, clinical trial”; and “cannabis and pharmacological/biological” and retrieved from ethnobotanical articles available on PubMed, Scopus, Science Direct, and Google Scholar databases. A search of the relevant scientific literature also was conducted to assess the efficacy of the ethnomedicinal usage of Cannabis sativa. Results While reviewing over 200 ethnomedicinal plants’ survey articles, we found that FMPs of Bangladesh from 12 different districts used Cannabis sativa to treat cited ailments like sleep-associated problems (n=5), neuropsychiatric and CNS problems (n=5), and infections and respiratory problems (n=5) followed by rheumatism, gastrointestinal, gynecological (n=4 each), cancer, sexual, and other ailments including hypertension, headache, itch, increases bile secretion, abortifacient, dandruff, fever, and urinary problems (n=1 each). There are a total of 15 formulations identified from the 11 out of 18 ethnomedicinal plant survey reports. The leaf was the main plant part used (53.8%), followed by root (23%), seed (7.7%) and flower, inflorescence, resin, and all parts 3.8% respectively. Conclusions Sales and cultivation of Cannabis are illegal at present in Bangladesh, but the use of Cannabis sativa as a natural phytomedicine has been practiced traditionally by folk medicine practitioners of Bangladesh for many years and validated through relevant pharmacological justification. Although Cannabis sativa possesses ethnomedicinal properties in the folk medicine of Bangladesh, it is, furthermore, needed to conduct biological research to consolidate pharmacological justification about the prospects and challenges of Cannabis and cannabinoids’ use in Bangladesh as safer biomedicine in the future.