In Silico Prediction of SSRs and Functional Annotation of ESTs from Catharanthus Roseus

Catharanthus roseus (periwinkles) belongs to the Apocynaceae family with great anti-cancer, anti-diabetic, andhepatoprotective values. Due to the large number of active molecules accumulated in these plants, they are ofparticular concern, especially in the pharmaceutical sector. The availability of ESTs gave the genetic algorithmof the plant to differentiate between the species accessions at the genetic level. The high-throughput method usedfor mining and detection of microsatellites (SSRs) embedded in ESTs gave a new insight for molecular markers’development. 19899 ESTs were retrieved, examined by NCBI EST dB and assembled 2692 to get full-lengthcontigs sequences. 338 microsatellites (SSR) loci were predicted with an average of SSR per 9.33 kb of ESTthough MISA-web tools out of 2692 contigs. Furthermore, trinucleotide, a well-known SSR was examined andfound to be the most favorable repeats' type (26.62%) followed by dinucleotide (24.22), mononucleotide (48.22%),and hexanucleotide (0.3%) types. The highest frequency of (A/T)n was reported in this finding followed by(AAG)n. The simple sequence repeats (SSR) extracted from C. roseus EST's data were used as molecular toolsfor genetic characterization in the present study. These predicted SSRs can be significantly used for constructingthe genetic maps and also for differentiating the accession between the species.

Screening and detection of biomarkers in chickpea plants exposed to chromium and cadmium.

A broad screening protocol, covering the most general phytochemical groups of compounds, was developed on the basis of high performance thin layer chromatography (HPTLC). A total of six TLC systems, comprising three derivatization reagents, two stationary phases and two mobile phases, were included. The screening method was applied for the identification of biomarkers in the chickpea plant exposed to cadmium and chromium. The biomarkers were selected on the basis of significant changes (0.26-4.6 fold) in concentration levels of phytochemicals. Totally, five different amino acids, three organic acids, one sulphur containing compound and one sugar were identified as biomarkers in chickpea exposed heavy metal.