The quality of the raw material and the processing conditions have a great influence on the nutritional properties of finished products. This research is focused on almond paste production and aims at developing a new production process to deliver the high nutritional content of the raw almonds into the finished product. Raw almonds are composed mainly of fats (approx. 50%) and proteins (approx...

Random amplified microsatellite polymorphism (RAMP) is a PCR-based marker which uses a combination of two classes of markers: Simple sequence repeat (SSR) and Random amplified DNA polymorphism (RAPD) markers. RAMP has been demonstrated to be a potentially valuable molecular marker for the study of genetic relationships in cultivated plant species. The objective of this study was to optimize the...

RNA isolation is difficult in plants that contain large amounts of polysaccharides and polyphenol compounds. To date, no commercial kit has been developed for the isolation of high-quality RNA from tissues with these characteristics, especially for fruit. The common protocols for RNA isolation are tedious and usually result in poor yields when applied to recalcitrant plant tissues. Here an effi...

Current RNA isolation methods have limitations in their ability to yield good quality and quantity of RNA from plants that have high content of phenols, polysaccharides and storage proteins. Existing methods also do not eliminate accompanying chromosomal DNA in RNA preparation that causes false positives in gene expression studies. Standard isolation technique was modified for rapid and quick e...

Isolation of high-quality RNA of Avicennia germinans L. tissue is difficult due to high levels of phenols and other substances that interfere when using conventional procedures for the isolation. These substances not only decrease the yield but also the quality of RNA is almost poor. We present here a simple RNA protocol and fast methodology that effectively removes these contaminating substanc...

Red leaf blotch (RLB) of almond, caused by Polystigma amygdalinum, is an important foliar disease this nut tree in the Mediterranean basin and Middle East regions. In recent years, incidence has increased Spain, corresponding to increases area newly planted orchards use susceptible cultivars. 2009, experimental orchard including 21 almond cultivars was at Les Borges Blanques, Lleida, northeaste...

High quality DNA was isolated from Casuarina equisetifolia which is widely planted in tropics and subtropics for its multiple utilities. Two commonly used methods, CTAB based and the commercially supplied DNeasyTM Plant Mini Kit (QIAGEN GmbH, Germany) were tested for their efficiency in isolating high quantity and quality DNA to be utilized for AFLP analysis. The CTAB based protocol was modifie...

We evaluated and compared 2 mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) extraction methods in terms of DNA quality and success of subsequent polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplifications from yellow etiolated shoots of wheat crop (Triticum aestivum). mtDNA ex-traction is difficult because the presence of metabolites interfere with DNA isolation procedures and downstream applications such as DNA restriction, amp...

An attempt is made to improve the currently accepted muonic value for the 197Au nuclear quadrupole moment [+0.547(16)x10(-28) m2] for the 3/2+ nuclear ground state obtained by Powers et al. [Nucl. Phys. A230, 413 (1974)]. From both measured Mossbauer electric quadrupole splittings and solid-state density-functional calculations for a large number of gold compounds a nuclear quadrupole moment of...