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Safflower is a traditional oilseed crop in the world. Its seed oil is a healthy edible oil containing high amount of unsaturated fatty acids. Genetically diverse exotic cultivars are valuable germplasm for introducing new diversity in safflower improvement programmes. In this study, we characterized safflower cultivars of India (30) and Mexico (23) comprising varieties, hybrids and advanced lines developed over 50 years for genetic distinctiveness using 38 simple sequence repeat (SSR) loci. Genetic diversity estimates across cultivar groups (total, India and Mexico) were as follows: mean number of alleles (3.2, 3.1, 2.6), expected heterozygosity (0.42, 0.37, 0.37) and polymorphism information content (0.36, 0.33, 0.32) respectively, which suggested narrow SSR allelic diversity within and between cultivar groups. However, distance-based cluster analysis (neighbour-joining tree) and model-based STRUCTURE analysis revealed that safflower cultivars of India and Mexico, with the exception of a few, form two genetically distinct groups. High level of genetic variation explained between the populations (40%) and Fst estimate (0.4) suggested that the cultivar groups were highly differentiated with limited gene flow supporting a strong genetic structuring. High oil (~38%) and high oleic (73–79%) contents of a subset of Mexican safflower varieties and advanced lines were confirmed in field trials in India. These exotic sources from Mexico are valuable for safflower breeding programmes in India to develop new cultivars with high oil yielding potential and high oleic acid content, which is the current market demand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spinocerebellar ataxia 1 (SCA1) is a late-onset neurodegenerative disease caused by CAG (coding for glutamine) repeat expansions or polyglutamine (polyQ) aggregates in the ATXN1 gene. Apart from the causative CAG repeat expansions in the ATXN1 locus, environment and ethnicity have been hypothesized to affect clinical variability. This review brings together studies on SCA1 conducted in India and explores disease heterogeneity within the Indian population in general and within a cohort of SCA1 individuals in a South Indian village. The studies support existence of genetic factors in addition to CAG repeat sizes that are likely to influence SCA1 progression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report here on the phylogenetic analysis, population substructure, and identification of molecular tags of 25 popular rice varieties and four landraces from different ecological belts of India employing a set of 52 simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers. Genetic analysis using the SSR markers categorized the genotypes into two major clusters, distributed according to their pedigree. Population structure analysis suggested that the optimum number of subpopulations was three ( K = 3) in the popular varieties and landraces. At K = 5 the allelic distribution was much more similar to the phylogenetic dendrogram. The molecular diversity and population structure analysis indicated that there is not much variation among the popular rice cultivars of India. The study has identified SSR markers producing unique alleles, which should aid in the precise identification, maintenance, and genetic purity analysis of rice varieties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The tat gene of human immunodeficiency virus type-1 (HIV-1) is responsible for the initiation and elongation of viral transcription through the LTR (long terminal repeat) transactivation process. Our study included structural and functional analyses of the tat gene and LTR region of 35 injecting drug users (IDUs) from Manipur (a north-eastern state in India and a potential source of HIV-1 recombinants) in order to search for the recombinants and variation in the transactivation process if any due to recombination. Analysis showed prevalence of subtype C with few BC recombinants for the tat gene showing identical recombination breakpoints. Phylogenetic analysis of the LTR region of those IDU strains showed strong resemblance to Indian subtype C forming a completely separate cluster from the other global C LTR sequences. The TAR element (transactivator response region) in all the LTR sequences was fairly conserved. Further study of the transactivation rate of the C and BC tat for the Manipur C LTR showed almost equal transactivity in both the cases. This is the first report of characterisation of tat gene and LTR region of HIV-1 samples among IDUs from north-eastern India. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Allele frequencies of the 15 autosomal short tandem repeat (STR) loci D8S1179, D21S11, D7S820, CSF1PO D19S433, vWA, TPOX, D18S51, D3S1358, THO1, D13S317, D16S539, D2S1338, D5S818 and FGA were determined in Afridi Pathan population of Uttar Pradesh, India. All the 15 STR loci studied were found to be highly polymorphic with respect to observed heterozygosity values. Adherence to the expectations of the Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium (HWE) was confirmed for all the loci with an exception of TPOX and FGA. The allele 12 in CSF1PO was found to be most frequent. The power of discrimination was found to be high ranging from a minimum of 0.858 for the locus CSFIPO to maximum of 0.962 for the locus FGA, thereby facilitating the validation and efficiency of these STR markers in human identification. Population differentiation test between the studied and neighboring populations revealed significant differences at several loci suggesting the endogamous nature of the studied population. To the best of our knowledge, Afridi Pathan population has not been explored genetically for generating forensic data on STR markers. Therefore, STR allele frequency data of this unique population is a valuable contribution to the existing DNA database on Indian populations. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Alleles frequencies for the 17 short tandem repeats (STRs) loci included in the PowerPlex® ESI 17 kit were investigated in a sample of 80 unrelated individuals from a Tibetan ethnic group living in Dharamsala in the state of Himachal Pradesh (Northern India). Due to the relative novelty of this kit, including the 5 new ENFSI recommended loci (D22S1045, D2S441, D10S1248, D1S1656, D12S391) together with SE33 locus, no information regarding all these new loci is available for the Tibetan population. The aims of the present study were to determine the genetic polymorphism of forensic validated markers and to increase the ethnical population database. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]