Considering the cost of two common agriculture inputs, water and nitrogen as well as their effects on the environment, optimum use of them is necessary. In this way, the production functions are ...applying to achieve maximum profits and environmental protection. Therefore, spilt-plot experiments were conducted on onion (Allium cepa L.) in a completely randomised block design for two years (2014/15-2015/16) in an arid region of Iran. The treatments included three irrigation methods (subsurface drip irrigation (SDI), drip irrigation (DI) and furrow irrigation (FI)), four levels of irrigation water (50(I
1
), 75(I
2
), 100(I
3
) and 120(I
4
) % of crop water requirement) and four levels of nitrogen fertiliser (25(N
1
), 50(N
2
), 75(N
3
), and 100(N
4
) % of crop nitrogen requirement). Regression analyses were done by linear, Cobb-Douglas, Quadratic and Transcendental functional forms of onion production. Results showed that the quadratic fits the data best, for the given local condition. The onion reached the highest increase in yield rise by increasing a unit of I (irrigation water) and N (nitrogen fertiliser) in SDI and the lowest in FI. Moreover, the pressurised irrigation methods are found to be advantageous to the substitution of N by I. The marginal rate of technical substitution demonstrates that in comparison to FI, more amounts of I and N are required to achieve equal yield in the pressurised irrigation methods.
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•Different bioactive effects of Thymus vulgaris and Allium cepa was investigated.•Thymus vulgaris and Allium cepa had protective, anti-apoptotic, and antioxidant effects.•Thymus ...vulgaris had high effects on the expression of genes involved in Alzheimer's.•Food additive with the studied plants proposed for protection against Alzheimer's.
Thymus vulgaris and Allium cepa are plants with great medicinal importance. Thymol monoterpene and quercetin, which are present in these plants, have anti-Alzheimer's and antioxidant effects. The objectives of this research were investigating the effects of these compounds on the pathogenesis and progress of Alzheimer's disease in cells modeled by formaldehyde. MTT, flow cytometry, and RT-PCR were used to investigate the toxicity, survival rate and apoptosis of the cells, and the expression level of PP2A, GSK3, NMDAR, BACE1, and APP genes, respectively. Also, the total antioxidant capacity of the modeled cells was measured. The results showed that the two compounds as well as the plants extract and essential oil were able to increase the percentage of cell survival; among them, Thymus vulgaris essential oil had the greatest effect (93.55316 % in 48 h exposure). In addition, quercetin was able to reduce the rate of apoptosis in Alzheimer's cells (4.73 %) which was greater than the effects of other compounds. In general, the essential oil of Thymus vulgaris compared to thymol; and quercetin compared to Allium cepa extract showed more improving effects on the expression of genes involved in the disease. All four compounds increased the antioxidant capacity of the modeled cells compared to the control group, and these effects were almost equal between the compounds. According to the obtained results, both plants, especially Thymus vulgaris can be proposed as candidates to be included in the diet of Alzheimer's patients. In addition, polyphenols thymol and quercetin as derivates from the studied plants can be used in new drugs development for Alzheimer's disease, with greater safety than currently used drugs. These results are significant because most of the drug for Alzheimer's treatments such as cholinesterases (e.g. rivastigmine and donepezil) and memantine are chemically based and have many side effects.
Genomic information for Allium cepa L. is limited as it is heterozygous and its genome is very large. To elucidate potential SNP markers obtained by NGS, we used a complete set of A. fistulosum L.-A. ...cepa monosomic addition lines (MALs) and doubled haploids (DHs). These were the parental lines of an A. cepa mapping population for transcriptome-based SNP genotyping. We mapped the transcriptome sequence reads from a series of A. fistulosum-A. cepa MALs onto the unigene sequence of the doubled haploid shallot A. cepa Aggregatum group (DHA) and compared the MAL genotype call for parental bunching onion and shallot transcriptome mapping data. We identified SNP sites with at least four reads on 25,462 unigenes. They were anchored on eight A. cepa chromosomes. A single SNP site was identified on 3,278 unigenes and multiple SNPs were identified on 22,184 unigenes. The chromosome marker information was made public via the web database Allium TDB (http://alliumtdb.kazusa.or.jp/). To apply transcriptome based genotyping approach for genetic mapping, we gathered RNA sequence data from 96 lines of a DHA x doubled haploid bulb onion A. cepa common onion group (DHC) mapping population. After selecting co-dominant SNP sites, 16,872 SNPs were identified in 5,339 unigenes. Of these, at least two SNPs with identical genotypes were found in 1,435 unigenes. We developed a linkage map using genotype information from these unigenes. All unigene markers mapped onto the eight chromosomes and graphical genotyping was conducted based on the unigene order information. Another 2,963 unigenes were allocated onto the eight chromosomes. To confirm the accuracy of this transcriptome-based genetic linkage map, conventional PCR-based markers were used for linkage analysis. All SNP - and PCR-based markers were mapped onto the expected linkage groups and no inconsistency was found among these chromosomal locations. Effective transcriptome analysis with unique Allium resources successfully associated numerous chromosome markers with unigene information and a high-density A. cepa linkage map. The information on these unigene markers is valuable in genome sequencing and useful trait detection in Allium.
Recently, the concerns about micro- and nano-plastics (NPs) toxicity have been increasing constantly, however the investigations are quiet meager. The present study provides evidences on the ...toxicological prospectives of virgin-, coronated- and isolated-NPs on human blood cells and Allium cepa root tip, respectively. Several plasma proteins displayed strong affinity towards NPs and produced multi-layered corona of 13 nm to 600 nm size. The coronated-NPs often attracted each other via non-specific protein-protein attraction which subsequently induced protein-induced coalescence in NPs. In the protein point of view, the interaction caused conformational changes and denaturation of protein thereby turned it as bio-incompatible. The coronated-NPs with increased protein confirmation changes caused higher genotoxic and cytotoxic effect in human blood cells than the virgin-NPs. On the other hand, virgin-NPs and the NPs isolated from facial scrubs hindered the root growth and caused chromosome aberration (ring formation, C-mitotic and chromosomal breaks, etc.) in root of Allium cepa. At the outset, the present study highlights the urgent need of scrutinization and regulation of NPs use in medical applications and pre-requisition of additional studies for assessing the bio-accumulation and bio-magnification of NPs.
Onion (
Allium cepa
L.) is a cross-pollinated crop with severe inbreeding depression. Inbred breeding lines are thus commonly maintained through sib-mating or a combination of sib-mating and ...self-pollination. Therefore, the homozygosity levels of onion inbred lines are generally low compared with self-pollinated crops. To evaluate the homozygosity levels of inbred lines, 43 high-resolution melting markers that were evenly distributed throughout eight onion linkage groups were selected among 652 markers consisting of a high-resolution linkage map. Eight individual plants from 119 inbred lines collected from five onion-breeding institutes were analyzed using the 43 HRM markers, resulting in an average homozygosity level of 0.55. This indicates that almost half of the 43 markers were still segregating in those inbred lines. The homozygosity levels of inbred lines varied between the onion-breeding institutes but they were generally higher than those of the Plant Introduction (PI) accessions. Additionally, the average proportion of genotypes fixed as either homozygous or heterozygous was 0.46 in 12 F
1
cultivars, indicating that their parental lines had low homozygosity levels. Phylogenetic analyses based on the pairwise genetic distances of all entries did not show clear clustering of related entries. This lack of clear clustering patterns was attributed to the relatively large within-population variations and low genetic diversity of the analyzed entries. The observed heterozygosity of the 43 markers was generally higher than the expected heterozygosity. Moreover, one marker exhibited a marked increase in observed heterozygosity, suggesting the possible involvement of this genomic region in inbreeding depression.
The aim of this study was to evaluate the involvement of nanoparticles prepared from Allium cepa L. as anti-inflammatory agents. In the present study, we identified nanoparticles from Allium cepa L. ...using the ultracentrifugation exosome purification method. The nanoparticles were referred to as 17,000× g and 200,000× g precipitates, and they contained quercetins, proteins, lipids, and small-sized RNA. The nanoparticles inhibited nitric oxide production from lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-stimulated RAW264 cells without cytotoxic properties. Cellular incorporation was confirmed by laser microscopic observation after PKH26 staining. The inhibition of caveolae-dependent endocytosis and macropinocytosis significantly prevented the incorporation of the nanoparticles but had no effect on the inhibition of nitric oxide in RAW264 cells. Collectively, the identified nanoparticles were capable of inhibiting the LPS response via extracellular mechanisms. Taken together, the way of consuming Allium cepa L. without collapsing the nanoparticles is expected to provide an efficient anti-inflammatory effect.
This study explores important information on biology, genetic resources, taxonomy, as well as morphological, biochemical and molecular markers in order to provide a better understanding of the ...genetic diversity of the onion (Allium cepa L.). The study has a particular focus on the plant as grown in Africa. The onion is a monocotyledonous, allogamous, and entomophilous plant, with a one-year production cycle for bulb production, and a two-year production cycle for seeds. The onion is one of the most significant vegetables in the world because of its use as both a food and a medicine. Twenty-eight morphological markers, linked to seed, leaf, flower and bulb traits, were identified as the most discriminant phenotypical criteria. Biochemical and molecular markers were also developed to characterize genetic variations between and within onion varieties. Previous studies examining West Africa onion varieties showed that only six enzyme systems are polymorphic. However, only twenty-four isozymes have been used to compare the onion to other Allium species. This low number of polymorphic biochemical markers makes it more difficult to determine the genetic diversity of onions. On the other hand, molecular markers at DNA level, such as RAPD, RFLP, AFLP, SSR, are very useful to analyze diversity at varietal and species level, using cultivated and spontaneous forms, and to analyze the level of introgression between the onion and the other species of the genus. Genetic diversity analysis showed an important variability between and within Africa onion landraces. It would be useful to combine in situ and ex situ conservation, using these genetic resources to improve the production and the appropriate use of African onion cultivars.
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