Cultivated Ancient Wheats (Triticum spp.): A Potential Source of Health-Beneficial Food Products.

A sustainable and wholesome food supply is the most important incentive that has led to an increasing interest in ancient wheats over the past few decades. Domestication of wheat, followed by breeding efforts, largely over the past 2 centuries, has resulted in yield increases but with grain quality deterioration due to the reduction of protein, vitamins, and minerals in grains. It has also resulted in a decrease in food diversity due to the loss of genetic variation in the cultivated wheat gene pool. Ancient hulled wheats, einkorn, emmer, and spelt are among the early cereals that were domesticated in their places of origin in the Fertile Crescent of the Middle East where their wild predecessors still grow. The ancient wheats had a long history as part of human diet, and played an important role as a major source of food for the early civilizations in that region. The risks of genetic erosion of crop plants and the associated likely consequences for agriculture now call for revitalization of the unrealized potentials of ancestral species like einkorn, emmer, and spelt wheat, the domesticated ancestors of modern durum and bread wheats. These ancestors need to be exploited to maximize the sustainable supply of grain protein, fiber, minerals, and phytochemicals. In addition, ancient wheat biodiversity can be utilized to ensure sustainable wheat production in the context of climate change and low-input organic farming systems. This review provides a holistic synthesis of the information on ancient wheats to facilitate a greater exploitation of their potential benefits.

Essential oil composition, total phenolic, flavonoid contents, and antioxidant activity of Thymus species collected from different regions of Iran.

In this study, the essential oil (EO) composition, flavonoid and phenolic contents, and antioxidant activities of fourteen Thymus accessions belonging to ten species were evaluated. Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis revealed the presence of 38 compounds with the major constituents including thymol (12.4-79.74%), carvacrol (4.37-42.14%), geraniol (0.3-22.44%), and p-cymene (0.8-12.86%). Cluster analysis identified three groups of high thymol, geraniol/linalool, and high carvacrol. The highest phenolic and flavonoid contents were detected in T. daenensis-1 (70.6mg tannic acid equivalents (TAE) g-1 DW) and T. vulgaris (8.55mg quercetin equivalents (QE) g-1 DW), respectively. The antioxidant activities of the samples were determined using 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) and reducing power assay. The results demonstrated that T. daenensis-3 (IC50=273.36), T. vulgaris (IC50=289.3), and T. fedtschenkoi-3 (IC50=339.22) possessed higher antioxidant activities than the others. Finally, the Thymus species with high bioactive compounds may be recommended for further food applications.

Genetic variation in safflower (Carthamus tinctorious L.) for seed quality-related traits and inter-simple sequence repeat (ISSR) markers.

Safflower (Carthamus tinctorious L.) is an oilseed crop that is valued as a source of high quality vegetable oil. The genetic diversity of 16 safflower genotypes originated from different geographical regions of Iran and some with exotic origin were evaluated. Eight different seed quality-related traits including fatty acid composition of seed oil (stearic acid, palmitic acid, oleic acid and linoleic acid), the contents of, oil, protein, fiber and ash in its seeds, as well as 20 inter-simple sequence repeat (ISSR) polymorphic primers were used in this study. Analysis of variance showed significant variation in genotypes for the seed quality-related traits. Based on ISSR markers, a total of 204 bands were amplified and 149 bands (about 70%) of these were polymorphic. Cluster analysis based on either biochemical or molecular markers classified the genotypes into four groups, showing some similarities between molecular and biochemical markers for evaluated genotypes. A logical similarity between the genotype clusters based on molecular data with their geographical origins was observed.

Meiotic behaviour of tetraploid wheats (Triticum turgidum L.) and their synthetic hexaploid wheat derivates influenced by meiotic restitution and heat stress.

Meiotic restitution is considered to be a common mechanism of polyploidization in plants and hence is one of the most important processes in plant speciation. Meiotic behaviour of plant chromosomes is influenced by both genetic and environmental factors. In this study, the meiotic behaviour of cereal crops was investigated, which includes tetraploid wheat genotypes (with and without the meiotic restitution trait) and their derivates (synthetic hexaploid wheats and a doubled haploid (DH) line), grown at two planting dates in the field. In addition, two local landraces of emmer wheat (Triticum turgidum ssp. dicoccum), one wheat cultivar (Chinese spring), one DH triticale cultivar (Eleanor) and one rye accession were included. Immature spikes of mid-autumn and end-winter sowing plants were collected in April and May 2008, respectively, fixed in Carnoy's solution and stained with hematoxylin. Pollen mother cells (PMCs) from anthers at different stages of meiotic process were analysed for their chromosomal behaviour and irregularities. Meiotic aberrations such as laggards, chromosome bridges, micronuclei, abnormal cytokines, chromatin pulling and meiotic restitution were observed and the studied genotypes were accordingly ranked as follows: triticale > synthetic hexaploid wheats > tetraploid wheats possessing meiotic restitution > tetraploid wheats lacking meiotic restitution > rye. The results indicated that the samples that had been planted in the autumn, thus experiencing an optimum temperature level at the flowering stage, exhibited less meiotic irregularities than winter planting samples that encountered heat stress at the flowering period.