The dengue and Zika viruses are primarily transmitted by Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, which are most active during day light hours and feed both in and outside of the household. Personal protection ...technologies such as insecticide-treated clothing could provide individual protection. Here we assessed the efficacy of permethrin-treated clothing on personal protection in the laboratory.
The effect of washing on treated clothing, skin coverage and protection against resistant and susceptible Ae. aegypti was assessed using modified WHO arm-in-cage assays. Coverage was further assessed using free-flight room tests to investigate the protective efficacy of unwashed factory-dipped permethrin-treated clothing. Clothing was worn as full coverage (long sleeves and trousers) and partial coverage (short sleeves and shorts). Residual permethrin on the skin and its effect on mosquitoes was measured using modified WHO cone assays and quantified using high-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) analysis.
In the arm-in-cage assays, unwashed clothing reduced landing by 58.9% (95% CI 49.2-66.9) and biting by 28.5% (95% CI 22.5-34.0), but reduced to 18.5% (95% CI 14.7-22.3) and 11.1% (95% CI 8.5-13.8) respectively after 10 washes. Landing and biting for resistant and susceptible strains was not significantly different (p<0.05). In free-flight room tests, full coverage treated clothing reduced landing by 24.3% (95% CI 17.4-31.7) and biting by 91% (95% CI 82.2-95.9) with partial coverage reducing landing and biting by 26.4% (95% CI 20.3-31.2) and 49.3% (95% CI 42.1-59.1) respectively with coverage type having no significant difference on landing (p<0.05). Residual permethrin was present on the skin in low amounts (0.0041mg/cm2), but still produced a KD of >80% one hour after wearing treated clothing.
Whilst partially covering the body with permethrin-treated clothing provided some protection against biting, wearing treated clothing with long sleeves and trousers provided the highest form of protection. Washing treated clothing dramatically reduced protection provided. Permethrin-treated clothing could provide protection to individuals from Ae. aegypti that show permethrin resistance. Additionally, it could continue to provide protection even after the clothing has been worn. Field trials are urgently needed to determine whether clothing can protect against dengue and Zika.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Breeding for a subjective goal such as flavor is challenging, as many blueberry cultivars are grown worldwide, and identifying breeding targets relating to blueberry flavor biochemistry that have a ...high degree of genetic control and low environmental variability are priorities. A variety of biochemical compounds and physical characters induce the sensory responses of taste, olfaction, and somatosensation, all of which interact to create what is perceived flavor. The goal of this study was to identify the flavor compounds with a larger genetic versus environmental component regulating their expression over an array of cultivars, locations, and years. Over the course of three years, consumer panelists rated overall liking, texture, sweetness, sourness, and flavor intensity of 19 southern highbush blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum hybrids) genotypes in 30 sensory panels. Significant positive correlations to overall liking of blueberry fruit (P<0.001) were found with sweetness (R2 = 0.70), texture (R2 = 0.68), and flavor (R2 = 0.63). Sourness had a significantly negative relationship with overall liking (R2 = 0.55). The relationship between flavor and texture liking was also linear (R2 = 0.73, P<0.0001) demonstrating interaction between olfaction and somatosensation. Partial least squares analysis was used to identify sugars, acids, and volatile compounds contributing to liking and sensory intensities, and revealed strong effects of fructose, pH, and several volatile compounds upon all sensory parameters measured. To assess the feasibility of breeding for flavor components, a three year study was conducted to compare genetic and environmental influences on flavor biochemistry. Panelists could discern genotypic variation in blueberry sensory components, and many of the compounds affecting consumer favor of blueberries, such as fructose, pH, β-caryophyllene oxide and 2-heptanone, were sufficiently genetically controlled that allocating resources for their breeding is worthwhile.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
• Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) in plants typically suffer from limited statistical power. An alternative to the logistical and cost challenge of increasing sample sizes is to gain power by ...meta-analysis using information from independent studies.
• We carried out GWAS for growth traits with six single-marker models and regional heritability mapping (RHM) in four Eucalyptus breeding populations independently and by Joint-GWAS, using gene and segment-based models, with data for 3373 individuals genotyped with a communal EUChip60KSNP platform.
• While single-single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) GWAS hardly detected significant associations at high-stringency in each population, gene-based Joint-GWAS revealed nine genes significantly associated with tree height. Associations detected using single-SNP GWAS, RHM and Joint-GWAS set-based models explained on average 3–20% of the phenotypic variance. Whole-genome regression, conversely, captured 64–89% of the pedigree-based heritability in all populations. Several associations independently detected for the same SNPs in different populations provided unprecedented GWAS validation results in forest trees. Rare and common associations were discovered in eight genes involved in cell wall biosynthesis and lignification.
• With the increasing adoption of genomic prediction of complex phenotypes using shared SNPs and much larger tree breeding populations, Joint-GWAS approaches should provide increasing power to pinpoint discrete associations potentially useful toward tree breeding and molecular applications.
Roots have been omitted from previous domestication analyses owing mostly to their subterranean nature. We hypothesized that domestication-associated changes in common bean (
) roots were due to ...direct selection for some aboveground traits that also affect roots, and to indirect selection of root traits that improved aboveground plant performance. To test this hypothesis, we compared the root traits of wild and domesticated accessions and performed a multistep quantitative trait locus (QTL) analysis of an intra-Andean recombinant inbred family derived from a landrace and a wild accession. Multivariate analysis of root traits distinguished wild from domesticated accessions and showed that seed weight affects many root traits of young seedlings. Sequential and methodical scanning of the genome confirmed the significant effect of seed weight on root traits and identified QTLs that control seed weight, root architecture, shoot and root traits, and shoot traits alone. The root domestication syndrome in the common bean was associated with genes that were directly selected to increase seed weight but had a significant effect on early root growth through a developmental pleiotropic effect. The syndrome was also associated with genes that control root system architecture and that were apparently the product of indirect selection.
Crop improvement efforts have exploited new methods for modeling spatial trends using the arrangement of the experimental units in the field. These methods have shown improvement in predicting the ...genetic potential of evaluated genotypes. However, the use of these tools may be limited by the exposure and accessibility to these products. In addition, these new methodologies often require plant scientists to be familiar with the programming environment used to implement them; constraints that limit data analysis efficiency for decision-making. These challenges have led to the development of Mr.Bean, an accessible and user-friendly tool with a comprehensive graphical visualization interface. The application integrates descriptive analysis, measures of dispersion and centralization, linear mixed model fitting, multi-environment trial analysis, factor analytic models, and genomic analysis. All these capabilities are designed to help plant breeders and scientist working with agricultural field trials make informed decisions more quickly. Mr.Bean is available for download at https://github.com/AparicioJohan/MrBeanApp.
Genomic selection is becoming a standard technique in plant breeding and is now being introduced into forest tree breeding. Despite promising results to predict the genetic merit of superior material ...based on their additive breeding values, many studies and operational programs still neglect non-additive effects and their potential for enhancing genetic gains.
Using two large comprehensive datasets totaling 4,066 trees from 146 full-sib families of white spruce (Picea glauca (Moench) Voss), we evaluated the effect of the inclusion of dominance on the precision of genetic parameter estimates and on the accuracy of conventional pedigree-based (ABLUP-AD) and genomic-based (GBLUP-AD) models.
While wood quality traits were mostly additively inherited, considerable non-additive effects and lower heritabilities were detected for growth traits. For growth, GBLUP-AD better partitioned the additive and dominance effects into roughly equal variances, while ABLUP-AD strongly overestimated dominance. The predictive abilities of breeding and total genetic value estimates were similar between ABLUP-AD and GBLUP-AD when predicting individuals from the same families as those included in the training dataset. However, GBLUP-AD outperformed ABLUP-AD when predicting for new unphenotyped families that were not represented in the training dataset, with, on average, 22% and 53% higher predictive ability of breeding and genetic values, respectively. Resampling simulations showed that GBLUP-AD required smaller sample sizes than ABLUP-AD to produce precise estimates of genetic variances and accurate predictions of genetic values. Still, regardless of the method used, large training datasets were needed to estimate additive and non-additive genetic variances precisely.
This study highlights the different quantitative genetic architectures between growth and wood traits. Furthermore, the usefulness of genomic additive-dominance models for predicting new families should allow practicing mating allocation to maximize the total genetic values for the propagation of elite material.
The University of Florida strawberry (
×
) breeding program has implemented genomic prediction (GP) as a tool for choosing outstanding parents for crosses over the last five seasons. This has allowed ...the use of some parents 1 year earlier than with traditional methods, thus reducing the duration of the breeding cycle. However, as the number of breeding cycles increases over time, greater knowledge is needed on how multiple cycles can be used in the practical implementation of GP in strawberry breeding. Advanced selections and cultivars totaling 1,558 unique individuals were tested in field trials for yield and fruit quality traits over five consecutive years and genotyped for 9,908 SNP markers. Prediction of breeding values was carried out using Bayes B models. Independent validation was carried out using separate trials/years as training (TRN) and testing (TST) populations. Single-trial predictive abilities for five polygenic traits averaged 0.35, which was reduced to 0.24 when individuals common across trials were excluded, emphasizing the importance of relatedness among training and testing populations. Training populations including up to four previous breeding cycles increased predictive abilities, likely due to increases in both training population size and relatedness. Predictive ability was also strongly influenced by heritability, but less so by changes in linkage disequilibrium and effective population size. Genotype by year interactions were minimal. A strategy for practical implementation of GP in strawberry breeding is outlined that uses multiple cycles to predict parental performance and accounts for traits not included in GP models when constructing crosses. Given the importance of relatedness to the success of GP in strawberry, future work could focus on the optimization of relatedness in the design of TRN and TST populations to increase predictive ability in the short-term without compromising long-term genetic gains.
Female mosquitoes display preferences for certain individuals over others, which is determined by differences in volatile chemicals produced by the human body and detected by mosquitoes. Body odour ...can be controlled genetically but the existence of a genetic basis for differential attraction to insects has never been formally demonstrated. This study investigated heritability of attractiveness to mosquitoes by evaluating the response of Aedes aegypti (=Stegomyia aegypti) mosquitoes to odours from the hands of identical and non-identical twins in a dual-choice assay. Volatiles from individuals in an identical twin pair showed a high correlation in attractiveness to mosquitoes, while non-identical twin pairs showed a significantly lower correlation. Overall, there was a strong narrow-sense heritability of 0.62 (SE 0.124) for relative attraction and 0.67 (0.354) for flight activity based on the average of ten measurements. The results demonstrate an underlying genetic component detectable by mosquitoes through olfaction. Understanding the genetic basis for attractiveness could create a more informed approach to repellent development.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
•Factor analytic GxE modeling was successful despite an unbalanced dataset.•There is a clear genetic-by-environment interaction signal for each studied traits.•The influence of the environmental ...variables was most relevant for height.•Understanding genetic-by-environment interaction is key for tree genetic selection.
European larch is an ecologically and economically important tree species planted across a wide range of environments. Understanding its response to the rapidly changing climate is essential to developing efficient gene resource management strategies in line with the assisted migration methodology. In this study, we quantified the genotype x environment interaction (GxE) of a larch provenance in a multi-environmental trial analysis using factor analytic (FA) modeling. We analyzed the mean annual height increment (MAI-H), the mean annual diameter increment (MAI-DBH), and wood density (PP). Additionally, we evaluated the effect of several environmental variables on these traits. The genetic correlations between sites varied from −0.53 to 0.99, −0.87 to 0.99, and −0.17 to 0.99 for MAI-H, MAI-DBH, and PP, respectively. This indicates the presence of low to high GxE. The growth traits showed more GxE signal than wood density. Narrow-sense heritability estimates were 0.41, 0.16, and 0.35 for MAI-H, MAI-DBH, and PP, respectively. The FA modeling of order 2 explained 77.4%, 67.9%, and 77.3% of the genetic variance for MAI-H, MAI-DBH, and PP, respectively. For MAI-H, the latent regression plots for the predicted site means indicate a significant positive correlation with the first factor loading. At the individual genotype level, the latent regression plots indicated high levels of GxE, especially for growth traits. Significant and relatively high correlations were found between several EVs and the factor loadings of the FA models, suggesting their possible influence on the genotypic performance across environments. Regarding MAI-H, elevation, averaged monthly mean temperature, precipitation seasonality, and stand age were correlated with the first factor loading. Annual temperature range with both the first and second factor loadings. For MAI-DBH, the mean diurnal range was correlated with the first factor loading. In the case of PP, we found that elevation was correlated with the second factor loading. Overall, this approach successfully modeled the GxE and identified environmental variables likely affecting it. Therefore, we conclude that this methodology is a valuable tool for selecting suitable genotypes adapted to specific environmental conditions.
PDF
