De Novo Mining and Validating Novel Microsatellite Markers to Assess Genetic Diversity in Maruca vitrata (F.), a Legume Pod Borer

Maruca vitrata (Fabricius) is an invasive insect pest capable of causing enormous economic losses to a broad spectrum of leguminous crops. Microsatellites are valuable molecular markers for population genetic studies; however, an inadequate number of M. vitrata microsatellite loci are available to carry out population association studies. Thus, we utilized this insect's public domain databases for mining expressed sequence tags (EST)-derived microsatellite markers. In total, 234 microsatellite markers were identified from 10053 unigenes. We discovered that trinucleotide repeats were the most predominant microsatellite motifs (61.53%), followed by dinucleotide repeats (23.50%) and tetranucleotide repeats (14.95%). Based on the analysis, twenty-five markers were selected for validation in M. vitrata populations collected from various regions of India. The number of alleles (Na), observed heterozygosity (Ho), and expected heterozygosity (He) ranged from 2 to 5; 0.00 to 0.80; and 0.10 to 0.69, respectively. The polymorphic loci showed polymorphism information content (PIC), ranging from 0.09 to 0.72. Based on the genetic distance matrix, the unrooted neighbor-joining dendrogram differentiated the selected populations into two discrete groups. The SSR markers developed and validated in this study will be helpful in population-level investigations of M. vitrata to understand the gene flow, demography, dispersal patterns, biotype differentiation, and host dynamics.

Studies on genetic divergence among Indian varieties of a spice herb, Coriandrum sativum

Coriander (Coriandrum sativum L.) is an annual spice herb that belongs to umbel family Apiaceae with diversified uses. We investigated the extent of variability among 22 Indian varieties of coriander using phenotypic and genetic markers. Multilocus genotyping by nine RAPD primers detected an average of intraspecific variations amounting to 66.18% polymorphism in banding patterns. Analysis of molecular variance indicated that a greater proportion of total genetic variation exists within population (98%) rather than among populations (2%). Higher values of Nei's gene diversity (h) and Shannon Information Index (i) and genetic distance analysis validate wider genetic diversity among Indian coriander varieties. Besides total internal transcribed spacer (ITS) length variations and single nucleotide polymorphisms, insertions/deletions (INDELS) were detected at seven sites in ITS-1 region. Multiple sequence alignment of 12 sequenced varieties revealed cent per cent identities of 5.8S gene region (162 bp) that validates its conserved nature. Multiple sequence alignment of ITS-1 region may be of phylogenetic significance in distinguishing and cataloguing of coriander germplasm. The representative sequences of each subgroup and all distinct varieties of RAPD clusters have been submitted to NCBI database and assigned Gen Accession numbers HQ 377194-377205. The measures of relative genetic distances among the varieties of coriander did not completely correlate the geographical places of their development. Eventually, the knowledge of their genetic relationships and DNA bar coding will be of significance.

Effect of post-harvest calcium chloride dip treatment and gamma irradiation on storage quality and shelf-life extension of Red delicious apple

Freshly harvested Red delicious apples were dipped in calcium chloride solution of varying concentrations (0.5-2.0% w/v) for 1 h prior to irradiation at dose level of 0.4 kGy. Fruits after radiation treatment were stored at 2 ± 1°C, RH 90% and evaluated at intervals of 30 days for various quality parameters. Results revealed significant (p ≤ 0.05) retention in firmness, juice yield and ascorbic acid content in samples treated with combination of calcium chloride at 2.0% w/v and gamma irradiation (0.4 kGy) during storage. Water soluble pectin was inversely correlated with firmness (r = 0.88) and was significantly (p ≤ 0.05) lower in samples subjected to combination treatment of 2.0% w/v CaCl2 and 0.4 kGy irradiation throughout the storage. The combination treatment of 2.0% CaCl2 and 0.4 kGy irradiation gave about 4.3 log reduction in yeast and mold count of apple samples. Results of the post refrigeration weight loss, firmness and overall acceptability revealed that combination treatment was helpful in extending the shelf-life of Red Delicious apples by around 20-25 days at 17 ± 2°C, RH 75% following 90 days of refrigeration.