TCP transcription factors (TFs) constitute a family of plant-specific proteins, with conserved motif known as the TCP domain. TCP domain contained 60 amino acids, and formed a bHLH structure involved in DNA-binding and protein-protein interaction. TCP TFs have been found to regulate many aspects of plant development, such as branching, height, leaf and flower growth. However, the study of TCP TFs in response to abiotic stress started relatively late. Accumulating evidence suggested that these proteins also played crucial roles in environmental stress responses, such as those mounted to cold and salt stresses. TCP TFs were involved in brassinolide, jasmonic acid, gibberellin and cytokinin signal transduction pathways. Thus, TCP proteins might be involved in the cross-talking between plant development and stress signal pathway. This paper systematically reviewed the latest advances on the functions and mechanisms of TCP TFs in plant developmental programs, hormonal interactions and environmental stresses, which may shed new lights on the applications of these proteins in modifying plant growth and resistance in desirable ways.

Maize Stalk rot is one of the important diseases, which are occurring in corn cultivating regions of China and abroad. Due to increasing mechanical harvesting and grain direct harvest, stalk rot has become the most threatening disease in maize production. The cultivation of resistant varieties is the most economic and effective measure to control stalk rot. This paper reviews the research progress of stalk rot on aspects of the distributing regions, pathogenic species, resistant germplasm screening, resistance inheritance and disease resistance gene discovery and localization, which will lay an important theoretical foundation for IPM of this disease.

Salt stress is one of the most important abiotic stresses, which seriously threatens the growth and development of plants. Understanding the adaptive mechanisms of plant to salt stress is beneficial for the breeding of salt tolerant crops and the effective use of saline land to meet the increasing demand of food supply. Salt stress causes ion imbalance, osmotic derangement, and accumulation of toxic substances, especially reactive oxygen species (ROS), in plants. To adapt to salt stress, the plants have to balance cellular ions, remodel osmotic potential and maintain ROS. The former researches on the genetic, physiological and biochemical subjects have revealed a large number of plant regulators responding salt stresses, which might modulate plant salt tolerance through multiple and complex stress signal pathways. This paper reviews the salt sensing, signal transduction, gene expression regulation, phytohormone regulation and adaptive response of plants under salt stress, and provides a relatively complete summary of plant salt stress response mechanisms.

Pear is one of the major fruit in China and favorite by domestic and foreign consumers due to its nutritional value and health efficacy. Pear flower is corymb inflorescence and belongs to the multi-flowered type. Fruit setting rate of inflorescence has significant influence on the yield of fruit trees. Artificial control of flowers and fruits is a measure to regulate the amount of fruit set in the tree, to ensure the yield and fruit quality maximizing the commercial profile. Understanding the mechanism of inflorescence formation is of interest to increase fruit yield and improve fruit quality. This paper reviews the evolution of inflorescence, the process of inflorescence development, fruit setting position of inflorescence, effects of endogenous hormones on floral formation, and regulation of related genes on floral formation, etc. Moreover, the future prospective is proposed, in order to provide ideas for the research on pear inflorescence formation.

Abiotic stress seriously affects plants growth and crop yield. Plant AREB (ABA responsive element binding protein)/ABF(ABRE binding factors) transcription factors are a type of leucine zipper protein that specifically recognizes ABA-responsive element (ABRE). They are involved in regulating the expression of ABA-responsive genes and play a crucial role in the response to abiotic stress in plant.This article introduced the structural characteristics of ABF transcription factors, the identified cis-acting elements, regulatory modification pathway and their roles in response to abiotic stress. This review might contributes a theoretical foundation for the application of ABF transcription factors to breed excellent cultivars?with stress tolerances.

Abstract: Thirteen agronomic characters and 12 quality characters of 102 rice landraces from Shandong Province were investigated and analyzed using the method of diversity index (H′) to provide useful information for genetic improvement of rice (Oryz sativa L.). The results indicated that the diversity index of agronomic characters varied from 1.42 to 2.05. There were higher diversity indexes in plant height, panicle neck length, and spikeletes per panicle. Diversity index were 2.01, 2.02, and 2.05, respectively. The ranges of diversity indexes of the quality characters were 0.99 to 2.04. Diversity indexes of protein content, gel consistency, peak viscosity, and hot paste viscosity and breakdown were 2.00, 2.04, 2.04, 2.01, and 2.04, respectively. These results showed that there was an abundant genetic diversity among agronomic characters and quality characters in Shandong rice landraces. These results provides useful information to rice breeding.

Iris halophila Pall and its variety I. halophila var. sogdiana (Bung) Grubov are potential horticultural plants for arid and saline-alkali land because of their drought and salt tolerant characteristics and various flower color. In order to elucidate the mechanism of different pigmentation in these two species, we cloned 3 partial segments of key genes relating to anthocyanin biosynthesis, namely chalcone synthase (CHS), chalcone isomerase (CHI) and flavonoid- 3',5'- hydroxylase like(F3'5'H-like), from perianth of young flowers of these two Iris plants. retro-transcription PCR method were employed in cloning and gene-specific primers were designed based on a transcriptome sequencing. The expression of these 3 genes were characterized by a real-time PCR assay. Sequence analysis showed that these 3 genes are first reported in I. halophila. Among these genes, F3'5'H-like is different from the classical F3'5'H which belong to CYP75A subfamily of cytochrome P450 superfamily, it is a homolog of Vanda coerulea F3'5'H-like gene which belongs to a new subfamily CYP76AB, a novel type of blue flower related genes. Expression analysis indicated that compared with in the yellow flowered I. halophila, CHS and F3'5'H-like are up-regulated in I. halophila var. sogdiana and are responsible for its blue-violet flowers.

沙冬青是我国西北荒漠区唯一的常绿阔叶灌木,具有极强的抗逆性和特殊的医疗保健作用。本文从细胞学与遗传多样性、抗逆性分子基础与基因克隆和药用成分及作用机制方面对沙冬青的研究进展进行了综述,并提出了今后的重点研究方向。

In order to study the small auxin-up RNA (SAUR) family of maize, this study identified by the genome-wide prediction approach 91 SAUR genes which named ZmSAURs, and analyzed the gene structure, amino acid characteristics, chromosomal location and genetic evolutionof ZmSAURs. The results showed that, the SAUR gene family were unevenly distributed on the chromosome, while the chromosome 2 up to 22 ZmSAURs. The amplification pattern of the gene was dispersed replication and fragment replication. The SAUR gene family has a relatively conserved structure, e.g. a conserved RNA DNA structure and the 3D structure of the deduced proteins that generally contained three alpha helices and three beta sheets. The phylogenetic tree analysis revealed 9 branches of SAUR proteins among species. As expected, SAURs in corn and relative millet (Setaria italic) were clustered together. Thus, this information provided by this work might be useful in future functional characterization of the maize SAUR gene family.

To get insight of MYB genes in strawberry, we used bioinformatics methods to screen the MYB genes from the Fragaria vesca genome database, and further analyzed gene structure, conserved motif, chromosomal location, phylogenetic analysis and expression in the period of the development of anther. Our results showed that three types of MYB transcription factors, including 105 R2R3-MYB, 4 MYB3R, 1 MYB4R, were identified. These genes unevenly distributed on 7 chromosomes, e.g., that chromosome Fvb5 contained the largest number of 26 MYB genes. Some of MYBs formed distinct tandem duplicate gene clusters. Although the protein length of strawberry MYB genes differed, all of MYBs contained conserved R2R3 domain, with characteristic amino acids, especially orderly spaced conservative tryptophan residues (W). Phylogenetic and gene structure analysis showed that strawberry MYB genes were divided into 34 distinct groups (A1-A34). The function prediction of strawberry orthologous genes using Arabidopsis thaliana gene annotation showed strawberry MYB genes were most likely involved in flavone synthesis, cell fate, and biotic and abiotic stresses. Temporal or spatial expression trends of MYB genes during strawberry anther development indicated that FvMYB2, FvMYB85, FvMYB74, and FvMYB28 had increased expression during 5 period of the development of strawberry anther, which were mainly expressed in the later period of anther development. These results suggested that those MYB genes may play important role during strawberry anther development. Thus, this paper provided information for functional identification of strawberry MYB genes.

Oilseed rape is an important oil crop in China. The sown area is about 67 million hectares and about 4.5 million tons of rapeseed oil is produced every year, which account for about 19.7% of total food oil consumption in China. Compared with developed countries, the problems in rapeseed industry of China are low yield and poor quality of rapeseed, and about 5 million tons of rapeseed is annually imported. The sequencing of oilseed rape genome has promoted the research on its breeding. According to the searching record of Web of Science, about total 728 articles related to rapeseed breeding was published in SCI/SCIE journals. Of 728 articles, 181 and 62 were independently completed by Chinese scientists and jointly done by Chinese and their cooperators from other countries, respectively, which account for 33.38% of the total published paper in the world. However, we lack high impact paper. The achievements in 2017 mainly focused on rapeseed oil content and quality, rapeseed yield, genome domestication, male sterility, abiotic

Using a set of 309 recombinant inbred lines of the spring wheat ‘Worrakatta’ × ‘Berkut’ grown with normal irrigation and under drought stress, respectively, as materials, the phenotypes of leaf area index (LAI) at flowering, filling and ripening stages, and the flag leaf chlorophyll content (CC) at heading, flowering and filling stages were identified. QTL mapping was carried out with wheat 50K SNP chip. The results showed that LAI and CC decreased significantly under drought stress compared with normal irrigation treatment. It was found that LAI and CC of the parents and RIL lines were significantly different with an obvious phenomenon of transgressive segregation at different growth stages with the two treatments. Two and one LAI-related QTLs were detected at flowering stage and ripening stage, respectively, which were located on chromosomes 5BS, 2BL and 1BL with normal irrigation. QLAI.xjau-5BS, QLAI.xjau-2BL.1 and QLAI.xjau-1BL explained 6.8%-8.2% of the phenotypic variation. CC-related QTL QCC.xjau-1DS was detected at both heading and flowering stages, which was located on 1DS chromosome, explaining 5.3%-5.8% of the phenotypic variation. One LAI-related QTL, QLAI.xjau-2BL.2, located on 2BL chromosome, was detected at ripening stage under drought stress, explaining 13.8% of the phenotypic variation. Seven candidate genes related to LAI and CC were screened from the QTLs found in the study, which included two genes related to F-box family proteins and one gene each related to MYB, GATA, abscisic acid receptor, BTB/POZ and WUS. These genes are involved in regulating crop growth and development and signal transduction, as well as in response to drought and other stresses. This study provides reference information for gene discovery and molecular breeding of leaf area index and chlorophyll content in wheat.

Abstract: The phytohormone auxin exerts a pleiotropic effect on various aspects of plant growth and development, including cell elongation, cell division, differentiation, root initiation, apical dominance, and tropic responses. Auxin mediates these effects at the molecular level by altering the expression of numerous genes. Most early auxin response genes are classified into three families: AUX/ IAAs, GRETCHEN HAGEN3s (GH3s), and Small Auxin-Up RNA (SAUR). AUX/IAA (PF02309) family genes achieve transcript due to the induction of plant hormone auxin and part of them have an N-terminal DNA binding domain. It is a transcriptional repressor that has proved to play a very vital role in auxin signaling pathway. GH3 (PF03321) was first found in soybean later, some GH3 genes were reported and divided into three groups: one combine JA-amino acid conjugates, the others were used to produce IAA conjugates and catalyze the 30 conjugation of amino acids and 4-substituted benzoic acid. GH3 plays an important role in auxin signaling pathways, optical signaling pathways and plant defense responses; Previous reports indicated that SAUR protein contains a central domain (PF02519), and it is highly conserved. The SAUR domain mainly contains hydrophobic amino acids, short, highly conserved, charged patches and a nearly invariant cysteine residue. Around the SAUR domain, SAUR 35 proteins have lowly conservative length N- and C-terminal extensions. Small auxin-up RNAs (SAURs) are the early auxin-responsive genes represented by a large multigene family in plants. In order to recognize the SAUR (Small auxin-up RNA) gene from the whole genome of the grape, the gene of SAUR gene was identified from the whole genome of the grape, and the gene structure, amino acid characterization, chromosome localization, gene evolution,functional analysis and tissue expression analysis of the SAUR gene family were carried out. A total of 64 members of the SAUR gene family were identified and showed cluster distribution on 8 chromosomes among 19 chromosomes. The genes were mainly distributed in Chr3 and Chr4. Chr3, exist the highest number of genes, 37 were distributed in it. the length of Grape SAUR family genes is shorter, where 59 genes are intronless. Analysis of protein physical and chemical characteristics showed that most SAUR protein was alkaline, the structure stability was poor, the protein fat soluble index was high, and it was hydrophilic. The function prediction of genes showed that the SAUR gene mainly functioned as growth factors, structural proteins, transcription, transcriptional regulation and responded to stress and immunization response and immune response. Most of them were involved in growth regulation. According to the phylogenetic analysis, it was divided into 10 branches. Analysis of different tissue expression profiles showed that SAUR gene family members had different tissue expression patterns and had some regulation effect on abiotic stress. This information has laid a foundation for the functional analysis of SAUR gene family. This work will pave a a new era of applying genetic information to a deeper understanding of strawberries and used to enhance the agricultural production. Making genetic information and genomics applied in many aspects of grape production, which means that the era of application of genetic information in crop production has arrived.

The PRRs family gene, which serves as a major component of the core clock of the circadian clock, plays important role in inhibiting the plant flowering, and manipulating ABA-dependent stress resistance and the accumulation of plant biomass. This article reviews the structural characteristics of the PRRs family genes, the photoperiod regulation model and its responses under stress treatments, in order to provide a theoretical reference for further study of the function of PRRs family genes and the cultivation of high-quality and broad-suit crop varieties.

The genus Polygonatum represents a wide geographical distribution, abundant resources, complex taxa and a long cultivation history, and they are considered to be important with the medicinal, economic, ornamental and cultural value. By taking advantage of the improvement of molecular biology, a variety of DNA-based molecular techniques have been developed valuable to the research in related fields of the genus Polygonatum. In this paper, we review the current status and progress of the genus Polygonatum using DNA-based technologies (such as molecular marker and DNA barcode), and propose future prospects in order to provide references for efficient protection and utilization of plant resources.

As the reproductive organ of angiosperms， the flowers are a vital part of plants and a prime basis for the study of plant evolution andclassification. The development of the floral organ is affected by a variety of factors， such as the external environment and internal physiology， leading to different traits in different species or among the same species， and genes， as the key factors therein， play a vital role in the whole process， and the role of their genes in the regulation of floral development has been a hot topic of research. The five whorls of structures of the calyx， corolla， stamen， pistil， and ovule of the floral organ are regulated by five categories of genes， A， B， C， D， and E， in the AE model of floral development， and these genes form a complex gene regulatory network in the process of floral organ development. The expression or silencing of each category of genes leads to structural changes in the floral organs， but there are differences among different species. In this paper， we reviewed the regulatory roles of MADS-box， AP2/ERF gene family members AP1， AP2， AP3， PI， AG， SEP， AGL6， SHP， STK， and other genes such as NAP， SPL， TGA， PAN， and WOX in the construction of floral organs， and the effects of genes in the development of floral organs at the molecular level were analyzed. The influence of genes on floral organ development at the molecular level was also analyzed. This study provides a reference for further understanding the role of genes in the regulation of floral organ development in various plants.

Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae (Xoo) and Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzicola (Xoc) are two highly related pathogens of rice that cause bacterial leaf blight (BB) and bacterial leaf streak (BLS), respectively, which constrain rice production in much of Asia and parts of Africa. Developing resistant cultivars has been the most effective approach to control BB and BLS. In this study, we reviewed the advances on identification of the main effect resistance genes and quantitative resistance locus of the two diseases, which will provide some useful information for further resistance breeding of this two related bacterial diseases.

Evaluation of the edible quality of sweetpotato is being conducted with the traditional sensory evaluation method. However, lack of a standard protocol makes the traditional evaluation method to be subjective and unprecise. To address this problem, this study intended to establish a new sensory evaluation model by using fuzzy mathematics. Firstly, five criteria indices were screened for evaluating the sweetpotato quality, including color, odour, sweetness, stickiness (flour-like taste) and fibrous taste. Each of these criteria indices was seperated and definded for five-point scores. The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) was used to construct a weight set and the industry experts were invited to score each pair of criteria indices of pairwise comparison. The sensory scores of various criteria indices of all tested varieties marked by valuators were used as the rank elements to construct fuzzy relationship matrix. The matrix was built and then used to calculate the result vector of fuzzy comprehensive evaluation. Lastly, the calculation rule of the integrated score of sweetpotato edible quality was formulated and edible quality grading standard of sweetpotato was proposed. To test the accuracy of the new evaluation system, 11 sweetpotato varieties with confirmed quality definitions (evaluating in the sweetpotato of China agricultural research system in 2019) were re-evaluated by the new built evaluation system. The result showed that the fuzzy comprehensive evaluation was more stable than that reveled with the tranditional method. The outcome gained from the new evaluation method is coincidence with the current universal recognition by the sweetpotato of China agricultural research system. Furthermore, the scoring was more accurate because there was a detailed scoring rubric for evaluators to mark. Difference in the tested varieties could be quantified with the integrated score via a fuzzy comprehensive evaluation rather than an expert direct scoring method.

High molecular weight glutenin subunits (HMW-GS) are the most important components in the storage protein of wheat grains. Their compositions, expressions and contents determine the dough elasticity and baking quality. This article summarized the progress of cloning, molecular characterization and functional studies of HMW-GS as well as their marker development and application in wheat breeding. Update status of different HMW-GS effects on flour processing quality, genetic transformation of several HMW-GS genes, small-scale mixograph analysis by adding prokaryotic expressed HMW-GS, and mutant developing on HMW-GS loci, were also reviewed. Besides, crucial issues in current studies on wheat HMW-GS were discussed. It is suggested that the key point on HMW-GS in the future will be to pyramid some desirable HMW-GS genes by marker assisted selection and transgenic strategies for the development of wheat varieties with good bread-making quality and the functional dissection of each HMW-GS gene accurately.

Plant height is one of the important agronomic traits and controlled by a consequence interacting among the genetic factors, the endogenous hormones and external environment. In common wheat, plant height is recognized as a quantitative trait modulated by multiple genes that are found on 21 chromosomes. Several molecular markers associating with plant height are available for marker-assisted breeding. The important progress on determining the genetic factors, genetic localization and gene isolation, regulation mechanism and marker assisted selection have been achieved. This paper summarizes the factors that contribute to wheat plant height, as well as the achievements on genetic localization, gene cloning, allelic mining, marker-assisted wheat breeding, followed by the prospective on future focuses in wheat.

In order to further improve evaluation and its effective utilization of rice landrace in Guangdong Province, we used 2974 accessions catalogued in the national genebank that 9 rice quality traits as basic data to study. The geographic distribution of rice quality traits were analyzed, and rice quality trait diversity among each area were compared, and the correlation between some ecological factors and rice quality traits were studied. The rice landrace in Guangdong province showed higher brown rice rate and milled rice rate, richer diversity of protein content, larger variation in gel consistency, and not many materials reached the national standard in amylose content. High-quality rice germplasm mainly distribute in Southcentral rice area of Guangdong province. The result also showed that amylose content, gelatinization temperature and gel consistency were the main impact index of rice quality formation. Humidity and temperature difference among areas were the main impact factors of rice quality formation. So, it is very important for high quality rice breeding and genetic background expanding to use rice landrace in Guangdong Province effectively.

In this study, we report molecular characterization and expression patterns of AmLEA5 (AAW31666.1) under abiotic stresses, a gene cloned from cold- and drought-stressed Ammopiptanthus mongolicus by a modified solid subtractive hybridization method. Bioinformatic analysis shows that the gene encodes a group 5 late embryogenesis abundant protein (LEA).The overall length of AmLEA5 is 693 bp, and the cDNA contains a 297 bp ORF encoding a polypeptide of 98 amino acids with a calculated molecular mass of 10.6 kDa. AmLEA5, with more phosphorylation sites, is a kind of hydrophilic protein. The analysis of codon bias shows that AmLEA5 gene is bias toward the synonymous codons with A and T at the third codon position. Phylogenetic analysis indicates that AmLEA5 protein is most closed to Medicago truncatula LEA (ACJ84182.1) in genetic relationship. qRT- PCR analysis indicates that AmLEA5 is up-regulated by cold, drought, salt and hot stresses. Specifically, transcription of AmLEA5 accumulated more at the late stage of cold treatment. Intracellular localization analysis shows that AmLEA5 proteins tagged with yellow fluorescent proteins (YFP)is more likely localized in the cytoplasm and nucleus. Our results suggest that AmLEA5 may plays important roles in abiotic stresses responses, especially in cold tolerant mechanism in A. Mongolicus.