Morphological, Biochemical, and Molecular Diversity of an Indian Ex Situ Collection of Pomegranate (Punica granatum L.).

Pomegranate (Punica granatum, L.) is a fruit tree that is increasingly popular worldwide due to the health-related properties of the fruit juice. While several studies highlighted the rich phytochemical diversity, few efforts have been devoted to an integrative understanding of the level of diversity of this species. This study investigated the diversity of 40 pomegranate accessions in an Indian ex situ collection by using twenty-nine morphological traits, six biochemical parameters, and twenty-nine Simple Sequence Repeats (SSR) markers. Among the evaluated traits, fruit volume (23.34% CV), fruit weight (21.12% CV), and fruit color (*a) (22.69 % CV) largely contributed to the morphological classification. Based on Mahalanobis D2 distance and Tocher's clustering, the 40 pomegranate accessions were grouped into eight clusters, partly consistent with their origin. Specifically, cultivars introduced from foreign countries were present in distinct clusters. The SSR marker analysis generated 66 alleles. The observed heterozygosity values ranged from 0.05 to 0.63, with a mean value of 0.30. Maximum molecular genetic dissimilarity was observed between 'IC-318720' and 'Gul-e-Shah Red' (0.30). The neighbor-joining dendrogram separated wild accessions from cultivated varieties. The combination of morphological, biochemical, and molecular characterization allowed for comprehensively characterizing the pomegranate diversity and provided information on the relationships between the different aspects of the diversity. This work also suggests that the origin of the accessions is an important factor of discrimination and that the level of admixture between local and foreign material is currently limited.

Corrigendum: Chloroplast genome sequencing, comparative analysis, and discovery of unique cytoplasmic variants in pomegranate (Punica granatum L.).

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fgene.2021.704075.].

Reference quality genome sequence of Indian pomegranate cv. 'Bhagawa' (Punica granatum L.).

Pomegranate is an important fruit crop for ensuring livelihood and nutrition security in fragile semi-arid regions of the globe having limited irrigation resources. This is a high-value, nutritionally rich, and export-oriented agri-commodity that ensures high returns on investment to growers across the world. Although it is a valuable fruit crop, it has received only a limited genomics research outcome. To fast-track the pomegranate improvement program, de novo whole-genome sequencing of the main Indian cultivar 'Bhagawa' was initiated by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research-National Research Center on Pomegranate (ICAR-NRCP). We have demonstrated that a combination of commercially available technologies from Illumina, PacBio, 10X Genomics, and BioNano Genomics could be used efficiently for sequencing and reference-grade de novo assembly of the pomegranate genome. The research led to a final reference-quality genome assembly for 'Bhagawa' of 346.08 Mb in 342 scaffolds and an average N50 of 16.12 Mb and N90 of 1088.62 Kb. This assembly covered more than 98% of the estimated pomegranate genome size, 352.54 Mb. The LTR assembly index (LAI) value of 10 and 93.68% Benchmarking Universal Single-Copy Orthologs (BUSCO) completeness score over the 1,440 ortholog genes of the completed pomegranate genome indicates the quality of the assembled pomegranate genome. Furthermore, 29,435 gene models were discovered with a mean transcript length of 2,954 bp and a mean coding sequence length 1,090 bp. Four transcript data samples of pomegranate tissues were mapped over the assembled 'Bhagawa' genome up to 95% significant matches, indicating the high quality of the assembled genome. We have compared the 'Bhagawa' genome with the genomes of the pomegranate cultivars 'Dabenzi' and 'Taishanhong.' We have also performed whole-genome phylogenetic analysis using Computational Analysis of Gene Family Evolution (CAFE) and found that Eucalyptus grandis and pomegranate diverged 64 (60-70) million years ago. About 1,573 protein-coding resistance genes identified in the 'Bhagawa' genome were classified into 32 domains. In all, 314 copies of miRNA belonging to 26 different families were identified in the 'Bhagawa' genome. The reference-quality genome assembly of 'Bhagawa' is certainly a significant genomic resource for accelerated pomegranate improvement.

Synthesis and biological evaluation of (-)-kunstleramide and its derivatives.

Stereoselective total synthesis of (-)-kunstleramide, a cytotoxic dienamide from the bark of Beilschmiedia kunstleri gamble, has been accomplished by using Keck's asymmetric allylation and Trost isomerization as key reactions. Application of the developed strategy for the synthesis of a series of amide analogues (8-22) was also reported. Furthermore, the synthesized compounds were evaluated for their in vitro anti-proliferative activities against human epithelial lung carcinoma (A549), human epithelial cervical cancer (HeLa), human breast adenocarcinoma (MCF7) and human neuroblastoma (IMR32) cell lines using the SRB assay. All the compounds show moderate anti-proliferative activity against all cell lines. Some of the piperazine derivatives (17-22) strongly inhibit the growth of breast cancer cells with IC50 values of 8-20 µM.

"Click" reaction mediated synthesis of costunolide and dehydrocostuslactone derivatives and evaluation of their cytotoxic activity.

As part of pharmacological-phytochemical integrated studies on medicinal plants from Indian flora, costunolide (1) and dehydrocostus lactone (2), were isolated as major phytochemicals from Saussurea lappa, a plant traditionally used in different Asian systems of medicine. A series of 1,4-disubstituted-1,2,3-triazoles conjugates were synthesized through diastereo selective Michael addition followed by regioselective Huisgen 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition reactions. All these triazolyl derivatives (5a-5j) & (7a-7j) were well characterized using modern spectroscopic techniques and evaluated for their anticancer activity against a panel of five human cancerous celllines. The results indicated that all the analogs displayed moderate cytotoxic activity.

Intraoral malignant melanoma.

Primary oral mucosal melanoma is a rare aggressive neoplasm and accounts for only 0.2-8% of all reported melanomas. It is a malignant neoplasm of melanocytes that may arise from a benign melanocytic lesion or de novo from melanocytes within normal skin or mucosa. It is considered to be the most deadly and biologically unpredictable of all human neoplasms, having the worst prognosis. In this article, we report a case of oral melanoma in a 52-year-old female patient with a chief complaint of black discolouration of the maxillary gingiva and palate.