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Seed weight is a critical and direct trait for oilseed crop seed yield. Understanding its genetic mechanism is of great importance for yield improvement in Brassica napus breeding. Two hundred and fifty doubled haploid lines derived by microspore culture were developed from a cross between a large-seed line G-42 and a small-seed line 7–9. According to the 1000-seed weight (TSW) data, the individual DNA of the heaviest 46 lines and the lightest 47 lines were respectively selected to establish two bulked DNA pools. A new high-throughput sequencing technology, Specific Locus Amplified Fragment Sequencing (SLAF-seq), was used to identify candidate genes of TSW in association analysis combined with bulked segregant analysis (BSA). A total of 1,933 high quality polymorphic SLAF markers were developed and 4 associated markers of TSW were procured. A hot region of ~0.58 Mb at nucleotides 25,401,885–25,985,931 on ChrA09 containing 91 candidate genes was identified as tightly associated with the TSW trait. From annotation information, four genes (GSBRNA2T00037136001, GSBRNA2T00037157001, GSBRNA2T00037129001 and GSBRNA2T00069389001) might be interesting candidate genes that are highly related to seed weight.

Due to its prolific growth, oilseed rape (Brassica napus L.) can be grown successfully for phytoremediation of cadmium (Cd)-contaminated soils. Nowadays, use of plant growth regulators against heavy metals stress is one of the major objectives of researchers. The present study evaluates the ameliorate effects of 5-aminolevulinic acid (ALA, 0, 0.4, 2, and 10 mg/l) on the growth of oilseed rape (B. napus L. cv. ZS 758) seedlings under Cd stress (0, 100, and 500 μM). Results have shown that Cd stress hampered the seedling growth by decreasing the radical and hypocotyls length, shoot and root biomass, chlorophyll content, and antioxidants enzymes. On the other hand, Cd stress increased the level of malondialdehyde (MDA) and production of H2O2 and accumulation of Cd in the shoots. The microscopic study of leaf mesophyll cells showed that toxicity of Cd totally destroyed the whole cell structure, and accumulation of Cd also appeared in micrographs. Application of ALA at lower dosage (2 mg/l) enhanced the seedling growth and biomass. The results showed that 2 mg/l ALA significantly improved chlorophyll content under Cd stress and decreased the level of Cd contents in shoots. Application of ALA reduced the MDA and H2O2 levels in the cotyledons. The antioxidants enzymes (ascorbate peroxidase, peroxidase, catalase, glutathione reductase, and superoxide dismutase) enhanced their activities significantly with the application of 2 mg/l ALA under Cd stress. This study also indicated that higher dosage of ALA (10 mg/l) imposed the negative effect on the growth of oilseed rape. Microscopic study showed that application of ALA alleviated the toxic effects of Cd in the mesophyll cell and improved the cell structure. Use of 2 mg/l ALA under 500 μM Cd was found to be more effective, and under this dosage, cell structure was clear, with obvious cell wall and cell membrane as well as a big nucleus, which was found with well-developed two or more nucleoli. Chloroplast was almost round in shape and contained thylakoids membranes and grana, but starch grains were not found in chloroplast comparatively to other treatments. On the basis of our results, we can conclude that ALA has a promotive effect which could improve plant survival under Cd stress.

Background Ricinus communis is a highly economically valuable oil crop plant from the spurge family, Euphorbiaceae. However, the available reference genomes are incomplete and to date studies on ricinoleic acid biosynthesis at the transcriptional level are limited. Results In this study, we combined PacBio single-molecule long read isoform and Illumina RNA sequencing to identify the alternative splicing (AS) events, novel isoforms, fusion genes, long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) and alternative polyadenylation (APA) sites to unveil the transcriptomic complexity of castor beans and identify critical genes related to ricinoleic acid biosynthesis. Here, we identified 11,285 AS-variants distributed in 21,448 novel genes and detected 520 fusion genes, 320 lncRNAs and 9511 (APA-sites). Furthermore, a total of 6067, 5983 and 4058 differentially expressed genes between developing beans of the R. communis lines 349 and 1115 with extremely different oil content were identified at 7, 14 and 21 days after flowering, respectively. Specifically, 14, 18 and 11 DEGs were annotated encoding key enzymes related to ricinoleic acid biosynthesis reflecting the higher castor oil content of 1115 compared than 349. Quantitative real-time RT-PCR further validated fifteen of these DEGs at three-time points. Conclusion Our results significantly improved the existed gene models of R. communis , and a putative model of key genes was built to show the differences between strains 349 and 1115, illustrating the molecular mechanism of castor oil biosynthesis. A multi-transcriptome database and candidate genes were provided to further improve the level of ricinoleic acid in transgenic crops. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s12864-019-5832-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.