Natural populations of the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, segregate genetic variation that leads to cardiac disease phenotypes. One nearly isogenic line from a North Carolina peach orchard, WE70, is shown to harbor two genetically distinct heart phenotypes: elevated incidence of arrhythmias, and a dramatically constricted heart diameter in both diastole and systole, with resemblance to res...

The molecular basis of the barley dominant Hooded (K) mutant is a duplication of 305 bp in intron IV of the homeobox gene Bkn3. A chemical mutagenesis screen was carried out to identify genetical factors that participate in Bkn3 intron-mediated gene regulation. Plants from recurrently mutagenized KK seeds were examined for the suppression of the hooded awn phenotype induced by the K allele and,...

In a previous study, two chromosome regions (Scmv1 and Scmv2), conferring sugarcane mosaic virus (SCMV) resistance in maize, were enriched with EcoRI/MseI AFLP (Eco-AFLP) markers (methylation insensitive) by targeted bulked segregant analysis (tBSA). The objective of the present study was to further saturate these two regions with PstI/MseI AFLP (Pst-AFLP) markers (methylation sensitive) using ...

Mutagenesis is a useful tool in many crop species to induce heritable genetic variability for trait improvement and gene discovery. In this study, forward screening of a soybean fast neutron (FN) mutant population identified an individual that produced seed with nearly twice the amount of sucrose (8.1% on dry matter basis) and less than half the amount of oil (8.5% on dry matter basis) as compa...

Next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies enable the rapid production of an enormous quantity of sequence data. These powerful new technologies allow the identification of mutations by whole-genome sequencing. However, most reported NGS-based mapping methods, which are based on bulked segregant analysis, are costly and laborious. To address these limitations, we designed a versatile NGS-bas...

An F2 population derived from a cross between apetalous line' APT02 'and normal petalled cultivar 'ZS NO.4' was used for molecular marker searching and chromosomal mapping of the gene(s) controlling petal-loss trait in Brassica napus. Twenty pairs of AFLP primers and 170 pairs of SRAP primers were selected and screened from two parents. In further selection through bulked segregant analysis (BS...

Quantitative trait loci (QTL) have been identified for competence of the mosquito Aedes aegypti to transmit the avian malaria parasite Plasmodium gallinaceum and the human filarial parasite Brugia malayi. Efforts towards the map-based cloning of the associated genes are limited by the availability of genetic markers for fine-scale mapping of the QTL positions. Two F2 mosquito populations were s...

Soil salinity is a major constraint to rice production in large inland and coastal areas around the world. Modern high yielding rice varieties are particularly sensitive to high salt stress. There are salt tolerant landraces and traditional varieties of rice but with limited information on genomic regions (QTLs) and genes responsible for their tolerance. Here we describe a method for rapid iden...

Height is an important trait related to plant architecture and yield potential in bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). We previously identified a major quantitative trait locus QPH.caas-6A flanked by simple sequence repeat markers Xbarc103 and Xwmc256 that reduced height by 8.0-10.4%. Here QPH.caas-6A, designated as Rht24, was confirmed using recombinant inbred lines (RILs) derived from a Jingdo...