Publications
NIBIOs employees contribute to several hundred scientific articles and research reports every year. You can browse or search in our collection which contains references and links to these publications as well as other research and dissemination activities. The collection is continously updated with new and historical material.
2020
Authors
Min-Rui Wang Zhibo Hamborg Rune Slimestad Abdelhameed Elameen Dag-Ragnar Blystad Sissel Haugslien Gry Skjeseth Qiao‑Chun WangAbstract
Shallot (Allium cepa var. aggregatum), a small bulb onion, is widely grown in the world. We previously reported a droplet-vitrification for cryopreservation of in vitro-grown shoot tips of shallot genotype ‘10603’. The present study further evaluated rooting, vegetative growth, bulb production and contents of biochemical compounds, as well as genetic stability in cryo-derived plants. The results showed no significant differences in rooting, vegetative growth, bulb production and contents of soluble sugars and flavonols between the cryo- and in vitro-derived plants. Analyses of ISSR and AFLP markers did not detect any polymorphic bands in the cryo-derived plants. These results indicate rooting and vegetative growth ability, biochemical compounds and genetic stability were maintained in cryo-derived plants. The present study provides experimental evidences that support the use of cryopreservation method for long-term preservation of genetic resources of shallots and other Allium species.
Abstract
No abstract has been registered
Abstract
Endogenous antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are evolutionarily ancient factors of innate immunity, which are produced by all multicellular organisms and play a key role in their protection against infection. Red king crab (Paralithodes camtschaticus), also called Kamchatka crab, is widely distributed and the best known species of all king crabs belonging to the family Lithodidae. Despite their economic importance, the genetic resources of king crabs are scarcely known and no fullgenome sequences are available to date. Therefore, analysis of the red king crab transcriptome and identifcation and characterization of its AMPs could potentially contribute to the development of novel antimicrobial drug candidates when antibiotic resistance has become a global health threat. In this study, we sequenced the P. camtschaticus transcriptomes from carapace, tail fap and leg tissues using an Illumina NGS platform. Libraries were systematically analyzed for gene expression profles along with AMP prediction. By an in silico approach using public databases we defned 49 cDNAs encoding for AMP candidates belonging to diverse families and functional classes, including buforins, crustins, paralithocins, and ALFs (anti-lipopolysaccharide factors). We analyzed expression patterns of 27 AMP genes. The highest expression was found for Paralithocin 1 and Crustin 3, with more than 8,000 reads. Other paralithocins, ALFs, crustins and ubiquicidins were among medium expressed genes. This transcriptome data set and AMPs provide a solid baseline for further functional analysis in P. camtschaticus. Results from the current study contribute also to the future application of red king crab as a bio-resource in addition to its being a known seafood delicacy.
Authors
Heidi Udnes Aamot Erik Lysøe Shiori Koga Katherine Ann Gredvig Nielsen Ulrike Böcker Guro Brodal Ruth Dill-Macky Anne Kjersti Uhlen Ingerd Skow HofgaardAbstract
The bread-making quality of wheat depends on the viscoelastic properties of the dough in which gluten proteins play an important role. The quality of gluten proteins is influenced by the genetics of the different wheat varieties and environmental factors. Occasionally, a near complete loss of gluten strength, measured as the maximum resistance towards stretching (Rmax), is observed in grain lots of Norwegian wheat. It is hypothesized that the loss of gluten quality is caused by degradation of gluten proteins by fungal proteases. To identify fungi associated with loss of gluten strength, samples from a selection of wheat grain lots with weak gluten (n = 10, Rmax < 0.3 N) and strong gluten (n = 10, Rmax ≥ 0.6 N) was analyzed for the abundance of fungal operational taxonomic units (OTUs) using DNA metabarcoding of the nuclear ribosomal Internal Transcribed Spacer (ITS) region ITS1. The DNA quantities for a selection of fungal pathogens of wheat, and the total amount of fungal DNA, were analyzed by quantitative PCR (qPCR). The mean level of total fungal DNA was higher in grain samples with weak gluten compared to grain samples with strong gluten. Heightened quantities of DNA from fungi within the Fusarium Head Blight (FHB) complex, i.e. Fusarium avenaceum, Fusarium graminearum, Microdochium majus, and Microdochium nivale, were observed in grain samples with weak gluten compared to those with strong gluten. Microdochium majus was the dominant fungus in the samples with weak gluten. Stepwise regression modeling based on different wheat quality parameters, qPCR data, and the 35 most common OTUs revealed a significant negative association between gluten strength and three OTUs, of which the OTU identified as M. majus was the most abundant. The same analysis also revealed a significant negative relationship between gluten strength and F. avenaceum detected by qPCR, although the DNA levels of this fungus were low compared to those of M. majus. In vitro growth rate studies of a selection of FHB species showed that all the tested isolates were able to grow with gluten as a sole nitrogen source. In addition, proteins secreted by these fungi in liquid cultures were able to hydrolyze gluten substrate proteins in zymograms, confirming their capacity to secrete gluten-degrading proteases. The identification of fungi with potential to influence gluten quality can enable the development of strategies to minimize future problems with gluten strength in food-grade wheat.
Abstract
Cereal grain contaminated by Fusarium mycotoxins is undesirable in food and feed because of the harmful health effects of the mycotoxins in humans and animals. Reduction of mycotoxin content in grain by cleaning and size sorting has mainly been studied in wheat. We investigated whether the removal of small kernels by size sorting could be a method to reduce the content of mycotoxins in oat grain. Samples from 24 Norwegian mycotoxin-contaminated grain lots (14 from 2015 and 10 from 2018) were sorted by a laboratory sieve (sieve size 2.2 mm) into large and small kernel fractions and, in addition to unsorted grain samples, analyzed with LC-MS-MS for quantification of 10 mycotoxins. By removing the small kernel fraction (on average 15% and 21% of the weight of the samples from the two years, respectively), the mean concentrations of HT-2+T-2 toxins were reduced by 56% (from 745 to 328 µg/kg) in the 2015 samples and by 32% (from 178 to 121 µg/kg) in the 2018 samples. Deoxynivalenol (DON) was reduced by 24% (from 191 to 145 µg/kg) in the 2018 samples, and enniatin B (EnnB) by 44% (from 1059 to 594 µg/kg) in the 2015 samples. Despite low levels, our analyses showed a trend towards reduced content of DON, ADON, NIV, EnnA, EnnA1, EnnB1 and BEA after removing the small kernel fraction in samples from 2015. For several of the mycotoxins, the concentrations were considerably higher in the small kernel fraction compared to unsorted grain. Our results demonstrate that the level of mycotoxins in unprocessed oat grain can be reduced by removing small kernels. We assume that our study is the first report on the effect of size sorting on the content of enniatins (Enns), NIV and BEA in oat grains.
Authors
Melissa Magerøy Erik Christiansen Bo Långström Anna-Karin Borg-Karlson Halvor Solheim Niklas Björklund Tao Zhao Axel Schmidt Carl Gunnar Fossdal Paal KrokeneAbstract
Plants can form an immunological memory known as defense priming, whereby exposure to a priming stimulus enables quicker or stronger response to subsequent attack by pests and pathogens. Such priming of inducible defenses provides increased protection and reduces allocation costs of defense. Defense priming has been widely studied for short‐lived model plants such as Arabidopsis, but little is known about this phenomenon in long‐lived plants like spruce. We compared the effects of pretreatment with sublethal fungal inoculations or application of the phytohormone methyl jasmonate (MeJA) on the resistance of 48‐year‐old Norway spruce (Picea abies) trees to mass attack by a tree‐killing bark beetle beginning 35 days later. Bark beetles heavily infested and killed untreated trees but largely avoided fungus‐inoculated trees and MeJA‐treated trees. Quantification of defensive terpenes at the time of bark beetle attack showed fungal inoculation induced 91‐fold higher terpene concentrations compared with untreated trees, whereas application of MeJA did not significantly increase terpenes. These results indicate that resistance in fungus‐inoculated trees is a result of direct induction of defenses, whereas resistance in MeJA‐treated trees is due to defense priming. This work extends our knowledge of defense priming from model plants to an ecologically important tree species.
Abstract
No abstract has been registered
Abstract
The invasive slug Arion vulgaris (Gastropoda: Arionidae) is an agricultural pest and serious nuisance in gardens of Central and Northern Europe. To investigate if the success of A.vulgaris in Norway can be attributed to a release from parasites, we compared the prevalence and parasite load of nematodes and trematodes in A. vulgaris to that of three native gastropod species, A. circumscriptus, A. fasciatus and Arianta arbustorum, in SE Norway. We found A. vulgaris to have the highest prevalence of both parasite groups (49% nematodes, 76% trematodes), which does not support the parasite release hypothesis, but rather points to A. vulgaris as a potentially important intermediate host of these parasites. For trematodes the number of individuals (parasite load) did not differ among host species; for nematodes it was higher in A. vulgaris than A. fasciatus. To further compare the parasite susceptibility of the surveyed gastropods, we exposed A. vulgaris, A. fasciatus, and A. arbustorum to a slug parasitic nematode, Phasmarhabditis hermaphrodita, in the laboratory. This nematode is commercially available and widely used to control A. vulgaris. The non-target species A. fasciatus was most affected, with 100% infection, 60% mortality and significant feeding inhibition. A. vulgaris was also 100% infected, but suffered only 20% mortality and little feeding inhibition. The load of P. hermaphrodita in infected specimens was not significantly different for the two Arion species (median: 22.5 and 45, respectively). Only 35% of A. arbustorum snails were infected, none died, and parasite load was very low (median: 2). However, they showed a near complete feeding inhibition at highest nematode dose, and avoided nematode-infested soil. Our results indicate that A. vulgaris may be less susceptible to P. hermaphrodita than the native A. fasciatus, and that non-target effects of applying this nematode in fields and gardens should be further investigated.
Abstract
The predatory mite Amblyseius andersoni (Acari: Phytoseiidae) is wanted as a new biocontrol product in Norwegian horticulture. The species was never found by Torgeir Edland, who surveyed the Norwegian fauna of phytoseiids for more than 20 years. Since A. andersoni has been found on blackberry in both Sweden and Denmark, we did a specific search for it in wild blackberry (Rubus tomentosus, sensu lato) in 2016. Almost 1500 potential phytoseiids were found on about 550 blackberry leaves collected near Sandefjord, Grimstad, Fredrikstad, and Ås. More than a third of these were examined at the Laboratory of Acarology (University of São Paulo, Brazil). Amblyseius andersoni was not found, but at least 10 other species of Phytoseiidae, all previously reported from Norway, were present. Thus, our survey supports earlier ones, indicating that A. andersoni is not naturally occurring in Norway. We conclude with some suggestions for an extended search.
Abstract
No abstract has been registered