In this study we determined the nutritional value of cauliflowers under traditional or reduced tillage cultivation system. The content of carbohydrates, proteins, free amino acids, glucosinolates, ascorbate and glutathione were determined separately in immature flowers and corymb stems of cauliflowers. A heat map analysis was applied to all the obtained results for the different tissues and different tillage treatments. The most surprising result was the 1.9 fold higher average concentration of starch and the 2.2 and 1.6 fold lower average concentration of glutamine and tyrosine, respectively, in flowers compared to corymbs. The tillage treatment, on the contrary, did not affect significantly the metabolites profile of the plants which were substantially similar, from a nutritional point of view, except for the free amino acids and glucosinolates. In particular the essential free amino acids average content was 1.4 fold higher under reduced tillage than under traditional tillage and this was mainly due to the 3.5 fold increase of tryptophan. On the contrary the glucosinolates content was about 1.3 fold higher under traditional tillage than under reduced tillage. However a cluster analysis confirmed that the different distributions of metabolites between flowers and corymbs from the same plants were much higher than the difference in metabolites determined by farming methods, suggesting that nutritional characteristics of cauliflower were not significantly affected by reduced tillage.

Nursery growing as well as common landscape hydrangeas are all susceptible to leaf spot fungus Cercospora hydrangeae. Warm and rainy weather causes the fungal spores to germinate quickly and spread over the plant leaves forming small purple or brown spots. Although Hydrangea plants are not killed by leaf spot, it detracts from the value of plants through the reduction of flowering and plant vigor. The aim of our study was to isolate, characterize and investigate the expression profile of Hydrangea macrophylla resistance (R) gene transcripts under C. hydrangeae fungus infection and examine their evolutionary relationships by phylogenetic analysis. R-genes are thought to be one of the components of the genetic resistance in plants and most of them encode nucleotide binding site-leucine rich repeat (NBS-LRR) proteins. A cDNA-NBS strategy was carried out using as template cDNAs isolated from control and infected plant leaves. The cDNA-NBS profiling gave an excellent bands reproducibility. Twenty new transcripts corresponding to NBS-LRR proteins were identified only in infected plants. The extent of positivity between the aminoacid sequences at NBS region varied from 45 to 90 %, which indicates the diversity among the RGAs. The results of this paper will provide a genomic framework for the further isolation of candidate disease resistance NBS-encoding genes in Hortensia, and contribute to the understanding of the evolutionary mode of NBS-encoding genes in Hydrangeaceae crops.

R gene expression changes related to Cercospora hydrangeae L.

Fuggi Amodio;Woodrow Pasqualina
2013

Abstract

Nursery growing as well as common landscape hydrangeas are all susceptible to leaf spot fungus Cercospora hydrangeae. Warm and rainy weather causes the fungal spores to germinate quickly and spread over the plant leaves forming small purple or brown spots. Although Hydrangea plants are not killed by leaf spot, it detracts from the value of plants through the reduction of flowering and plant vigor. The aim of our study was to isolate, characterize and investigate the expression profile of Hydrangea macrophylla resistance (R) gene transcripts under C. hydrangeae fungus infection and examine their evolutionary relationships by phylogenetic analysis. R-genes are thought to be one of the components of the genetic resistance in plants and most of them encode nucleotide binding site-leucine rich repeat (NBS-LRR) proteins. A cDNA-NBS strategy was carried out using as template cDNAs isolated from control and infected plant leaves. The cDNA-NBS profiling gave an excellent bands reproducibility. Twenty new transcripts corresponding to NBS-LRR proteins were identified only in infected plants. The extent of positivity between the aminoacid sequences at NBS region varied from 45 to 90 %, which indicates the diversity among the RGAs. The results of this paper will provide a genomic framework for the further isolation of candidate disease resistance NBS-encoding genes in Hortensia, and contribute to the understanding of the evolutionary mode of NBS-encoding genes in Hydrangeaceae crops.
2013
In this study we determined the nutritional value of cauliflowers under traditional or reduced tillage cultivation system. The content of carbohydrates, proteins, free amino acids, glucosinolates, ascorbate and glutathione were determined separately in immature flowers and corymb stems of cauliflowers. A heat map analysis was applied to all the obtained results for the different tissues and different tillage treatments. The most surprising result was the 1.9 fold higher average concentration of starch and the 2.2 and 1.6 fold lower average concentration of glutamine and tyrosine, respectively, in flowers compared to corymbs. The tillage treatment, on the contrary, did not affect significantly the metabolites profile of the plants which were substantially similar, from a nutritional point of view, except for the free amino acids and glucosinolates. In particular the essential free amino acids average content was 1.4 fold higher under reduced tillage than under traditional tillage and this was mainly due to the 3.5 fold increase of tryptophan. On the contrary the glucosinolates content was about 1.3 fold higher under traditional tillage than under reduced tillage. However a cluster analysis confirmed that the different distributions of metabolites between flowers and corymbs from the same plants were much higher than the difference in metabolites determined by farming methods, suggesting that nutritional characteristics of cauliflower were not significantly affected by reduced tillage.
File in questo prodotto:
Non ci sono file associati a questo prodotto.

I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.

Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11591/321417
Citazioni
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.pmc??? ND
  • Scopus 11
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.isi??? 1
social impact