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The evolution of entanglement in a one-dimensional Ising chain with both two-body and three-body interactions, under two types of initial states, is numerically simulated. We analyse three problems concerning the dynamics of pairwise entanglement: (i) the possibility of generating large entanglement from an initial separable state by the use of a selective irradiation scheme; (ii) the effect of three-body interaction on the generation of entanglement from an initial separable state; (iii) the effect of three-body interaction on the decay of the entanglement from a state with only (m,n)-pair maximal entangled, and the rest in product form. It is shown that a large pairwise concurrence Cmn can be obtained when the resonant, transverse radio-frequency fields are selectively switched on from the mth to nth spins. Three-body interaction will decrease the oscillation amplitude of the nearest neighbour concurrence, while the oscillation amplitude of remote pairwise concurrence will be greatly increased with the consideration of three-body interactions. For an initial (m,n)-pair maximal entangled state, a slow decay of the pairwise concurrence Cmn is found with the introduction of three-body interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides information on a study on embryo, cytoplasmic and maternal correlations for quality traits of rapeseed across environments. It is said that fatty acid component content and the nutrient quality of rapeseed oil are closely related. One of the most important aims in rapeseed breeding is said to be high oil content.

The selection of an appropriate sampling strategy and a clustering method is important in the construction of core collections based on predicted genotypic values in order to retain the greatest degree of genetic diversity of the initial collection. In this study, methods of developing rice core collections were evaluated based on the predicted genotypic values for 992 rice varieties with 13 quantitative traits. The genotypic values of the traits were predicted by the adjusted unbiased prediction (AUP) method. Based on the predicted genotypic values, Mahalanobis distances were calculated and employed to measure the genetic similarities among the rice varieties. Six hierarchical clustering methods, including the single linkage, median linkage, centroid, unweighted pair-group average, weighted pair-group average and flexible-beta methods, were combined with random, preferred and deviation sampling to develop 18 core collections of rice germplasm. The results show that the deviation sampling strategy in combination with the unweighted pair-group average method of hierarchical clustering retains the greatest degree of genetic diversities of the initial collection. The core collections sampled using predicted genotypic values had more genetic diversity than those based on phenotypic values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The heterosis controlled by genetic main effects and genotype × environment (GE) interaction effects for protein content and lysine content traits of indica hybrid rice, Oryza sativa L., was studied by using a genetic model for quantitative traits of triploid endosperm. The experiment was conducted over 2 years in a factorial design that included nine cytoplasmic male-sterile lines as females and five restorer lines as males. It was revealed that heterosis of protein content and lysine content were simultaneously controlled by genetic main effects and GE interaction effects. Maternal general heterosis and maternal interaction heterosis were observed. Embryo heterosis or cytoplasm heterosis for lysine content and endosperm heterosis for protein content were more important in general heterosis. Embryo interaction heterosis and cytoplasm interaction heterosis were more important for protein content, but endosperm heterosis was only important for lysine content in GE interaction heterosis. It was shown that some indica hybrid crosses had significant positive heterosis for protein content. Negative heterosis for lysine content was observed in most hybrid crosses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Yellow leaf mutants are useful genetic variants to explore the mechanism of chloroplast development. In this study, we developed and characterized a new rice (Orzya sativa L.) yellow leaf mutant, ygl54, with ethylmethane sulfonate (EMS) treatment on Zhenong 34, which exhibited leaf yellowing at early stage. By map-based cloning, OsYGL54 was located on long arm of chromosome 11 with a physical distance of 26 kb, and the substitution from G to A at the first exon of LOC_Os11g36440 was identified. Silent mutation in subsequent codon of ATG, disturbed the translation initiation, which caused lower expression level of OsYGL54 across the tissues. The histological analysis revealed that the chloroplast of mesophyll cells in ygl54 was disrupted with reduction in size of starch granules and higher number of plastoglobuli, which resulted in decreased chlorophyll contents, lower photosynthetic parameter, and lower expression level of genes associated with pigment metabolism and photosynthesis. The disruption in chloroplast caused higher accumulation of H2O2 and MDA contents. In conclusion, our results revealed the importance of sequence of second codon suggests that OsYGL54 was possibly involved in pigment metabolism and valuable for further study to explore the mechanism of chloroplast development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Glutathione-S-transferase P1 (GSTP1) methylation has been demonstrated to be associated with oxidative stress induced liver damage in acute-on-chronic hepatitis B liver failure (ACHBLF). Aim To evaluate the methylation level of GSTP1 promoter in acute-on-chronic hepatitis B liver failure and determine its predictive value for prognosis. Methods One hundred and five patients with acute-on-chronic hepatitis B liver failure, 86 with chronic hepatitis B (CHB) and 30 healthy controls (HC) were retrospectively enrolled. GSTP1 methylation level in peripheral mononuclear cells (PBMC) was detected by MethyLight. Clinical and laboratory parameters were obtained. Results GSTP1 methylation levels were significantly higher in patients with acute-onchronic hepatitis B liver failure (median 16.84%, interquartile range 1.83-59.05%) than those with CHB (median 1.25%, interquartile range 0.48-2.47%; P < 0.01) and HC (median 0.80%, interquartile range 0.67-1.27%; P < 0.01). In acute-onchronic hepatitis B liver failure group, nonsurvivors showed significantly higher GSTP1 methylation levels (P < 0.05) than survivors. GSTP1 methylation level was significantly correlated with total bilirubin (r = 0.29, P < 0.01), prothrombin time activity (r = -0.24, P = 0.01) and model for end-stage liver disease (MELD) score (r = 0.26, P = 0.01). When used to predict 1- or 2-month mortality of acute-on-chronic hepatitis B liver failure, GSTP1 methylation showed significantly better predictive value than MELD score [area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) 0.89 vs. 0.72, P < 0.01; AUC 0.83 vs. 0.70, P < 0.05 respectively]. Meanwhile, patients with GSTP1 methylation levels above the cutoff points showed significantly poorer survival than those below (P < 0.05). Conclusions Aberrant GSTP1 promoter methylation exists in acute-on-chronic hepatitis B liver failure and shows high predictive value for short-term mortality. It might serve as a potential prognostic marker for acute-on-chronic hepatitis B liver failure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mineral nutrition of potassium (K), calcium (Ca), sodium (Na), magnesium (Mg), iron (Fe), zinc (Zn), copper (Cu) and manganese (Mn) are important for human health. The method of inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) was employed to determinate the contents of K, Ca, Na, Mg, Fe, Zn, Cu and Mn in milled rice ( Oryza sativa L.) of 274 rice genotypes. The results showed that the visible difference could be found for the contents of eight elements in milled rice among rice genotypes studied. It existed the possibility to select the genotype(s) with abundant of mineral nutrient from the genetic resource. Meanwhile, the contents of mineral elements in brown rice were significantly higher than those in milled rice. The averages of K, Mn and Cu contents of indica rice were significantly lower than those of japonica rice, while no significant difference was found for other five element contents between indica and japonica rice genotypes. The average contents of Na and Cu in non-glutinous rice genotypes were higher than those in glutinous ones, whereas the averages of K and Mn contents in non-glutinous rice genotypes were lower in present experiment. Additionally, the K, Ca and Mg contents of milled rice from white brown rice were significantly higher than those from red brown rice, and Ca content of milled rice from white brown rice was also visibly higher than that from black brown rice. For microelements, significant difference was observed for Zn content between milled rice from red and white brown rice, or between milled rice from red and black brown rice. Some genotypes with abundant mineral nutrient in milled rice had been selected and could be used in rice nutrient breeding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Investigations to identify quantitative trait loci (QTLs) governing cooking quality traits including amylose content, gel consistency and gelatinization temperature (expressed by the alkali spread value) were conducted using a set of 241 RIL populations derived from an elite hybrid cross of “Zhenshan 97” × “Minghui 63” and their reciprocal backcrosses BC1F1 and BC2F1 populations in two environments. QTLs and QTL × environment interactions were analyzed by using the genetic model with endosperm and maternal effects and environmental interaction effects on quantitative traits of seed in cereal crops. The results suggested that a total of seven QTLs were associated with cooking quality of rice, which were subsequently mapped to chromosomes 1, 4 and 6. Six of these QTLs were also found to have environmental interaction effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The genetic diversity of 118 tobacco accessions, including flue-cured tobacco, sun-/air-cured tobacco, burley tobacco, oriental tobacco and wild tobacco, was characterised using intersimple sequence repeat (ISSR) and inter-retrotransposon amplification polymorphism (IRAP) markers. ISSR and IRAP banding patterns and genetic distance (GD) values showed the low level of genetic diversity within and among cultivated tobacco types. There was higher GD and average heterozygosity among wild tobacco types than those among cultivated tobacco. Genetic diversity of tobacco germplasm was low, with a high level of genetic identity (>0.77) between the different types. However, neighbour-joining cluster analysis of marker-based GDs showed that the accessions from the same tobacco type, as classified by manufacturing quality traits, were nearly clustered into the same group. These results will help in the formulation of appropriate strategies for variety improvement in tobacco, and ISSR and IRAP markers of the genetic diversity will contribute to further study and improvement of tobacco. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Yield and its components were investigated by using a population of 241 recombinant inbred lines (F9 RILs) derived from an elite hybrid rice cross of‘Zhenshan 97’ × ‘Minghui 63’. Quantitative trait loci (QTLs) for causal analysing of yield traits were detected at different yield component (YC) influences by conditional and unconditional QTL mapping methods. The number of QTLs significantly affecting yield was different at component-special influence. Some QTLs controlling yield identified in one component influence were undetectable at the others. More QTLs for yield could be detected at different YC influences. It is possible to reveal that causal gene expression for yield could be different at different YC influences. Mapping QTLs for component effects of yield could help us in understanding the nature of cause-effect traits for the formation of grain yield. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]