Adaptive mechanisms in quinoa for coping in stressful environments: an update.

Quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa) is a grain-like, genetically diverse, highly complex, nutritious, and stress-tolerant food that has been used in Andean Indigenous cultures for thousands of years. Over the past several decades, numerous nutraceutical and food companies are using quinoa because of its perceived health benefits. Seeds of quinoa have a superb balance of proteins, lipids, carbohydrates, saponins, vitamins, phenolics, minerals, phytoecdysteroids, glycine betaine, and betalains. Quinoa due to its high nutritional protein contents, minerals, secondary metabolites and lack of gluten, is used as the main food source worldwide. In upcoming years, the frequency of extreme events and climatic variations is projected to increase which will have an impact on reliable and safe production of food. Quinoa due to its high nutritional quality and adaptability has been suggested as a good candidate to offer increased food security in a world with increased climatic variations. Quinoa possesses an exceptional ability to grow and adapt in varied and contrasting environments, including drought, saline soil, cold, heat UV-B radiation, and heavy metals. Adaptations in salinity and drought are the most commonly studied stresses in quinoa and their genetic diversity associated with two stresses has been extensively elucidated. Because of the traditional wide-ranging cultivation area of quinoa, different quinoa cultivars are available that are specifically adapted for specific stress and with broad genetic variability. This review will give a brief overview of the various physiological, morphological and metabolic adaptations in response to several abiotic stresses.

Identification of T-DNA Insertion Site and Flanking Sequence of a Genetically Modified Maize Event IE09S034 Using Next-Generation Sequencing Technology.

Molecular characteristics including information of insertion site, flanking sequence, and copy numbers are the base for the safety assessment and subsequent monitoring of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), which has to be revealed thoroughly in a case-by-case manner. Although both polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based and next-generation sequencing (NGS)-based approaches are proven to be effective in the molecular characterization of most of GM events, they often fail to work with GM maize events, mainly due to the genome complexity. In this study, by using NGS, we successfully identified the 3' end T-DNA insertion site and flanking sequence of a GM maize event IE09S034, which were confirmed by PCR amplification and Sanger sequencing. Notably, insertions of unintended exogenous elements were revealed in this event although the single copy of target exogenous genes was also confirmed by digital PCR. The output of this study provides novel and important genetic evidence for the safety assessment and monitoring of GM maize event IE09S034.