Development of mapping populations (MP) of any crop, including wheat, with its high-density genetics map is a crucial initial step in breeding programs aimed towards identification of quantitative trait loci for complex traits, such as yield. Current study is related to the field observations of hexaploid common wheat MP derived from a cross between the cultivars Pamyati Azieva (Russian Federation) and Paragon (UK). MP consisted of 98 recombinant inbred lines (RILs). It is the first mapping population to be constructed using one of the registered commercial cultivars in Kazakhstan. All 98 RILs were tested for four consecutive years (2015-2018) in the field conditions of the Kazakh Research Institute of Agriculture and Plant growing (KAZNIIZR). Field study suggests that the MP is a highly suitable genetic resource for wheat breeding projects, as the developed RILs showed a wide range of variation in yield related traits, including plant height (PH), number of fertile spikes (NFS), number of kernels per spike (NKS), and thousand kernel weight (TKW). The analysis of weight of kernels per plant (WKP) indicated that in total 40 RILs, including these five RILs: RIL48, RIL36, RIL83, RIL01, and RIL46, outperformed the local parent cultivar Pamyati Azieva. They showed averaged best yield values over the indicated period, which is highly correlated with PH, NFS, NKS, and TKW, as indicated by the Pearson correlation index. Individuals with favorable values for all yield-related traits were identified for their incorporation into the breeding studies. The GGE Biplot analysis allowed the separation of four trials to two mega-environments, possibly reflecting the amount of precipitation around flowering time and seed maturation time, which are crucial phases of wheat plant growth and development. These observations will be used to inform further studies related to genetic mapping of quantitative trait loci of yield components in common wheat.

The aim of this study is to investigate the phenolic profiles and evaluate the brine shrimp cytotoxic activity of the ethanolic extract from the aerial part of C. alatavicus, an endemic species of Kazakhstan flora. Nine phenolic compounds were identified and quantified in the extract by high-performance liquid chromatography method. Preliminary cytotoxicity of the extract was determined by the brine shrimp (Artemiasalina) assay. The results reveal that the ethanolic extract from the aerial part of Crocus alatavicus exhibit a high cytotoxicity with LC50 15.71 μg/mL.

Polysaccharides were extracted from wheat suspension culture and cultivated cells. Gaz-liquid chromatography of wheat suspension culture allowed identifying the composition of polysaccharides that were found to contain arabinose, xylose, galactose, glucose, and a little amount of mannose and rhamnose. In dried cultivated cells the polysaccharide structure consisted mainly from arabinose, xylose, and galactose. It was found that the percentage of the amount of monosaccharides was positively correlated with the concentration of 2,4-D at the suspension media.

Polysaccharides (PS) from wheat cell culture were isolated by liquid-liquid extraction. The molecular mass distribution was determined by gel-permeation chromatography (GPC) using dual detectors for the simultaneous detection. It was supposed that PS sample from wheat cell culture has molecular weight of 1632 Da. The physic-chemical properties of PS such as solubility in different solvents, surface activity, ξ-potential, the pH value, polydispersity (PDI) were determined. The PS sample was soluble in water and insoluble in ethanol, acetone and chloroform. ξ-potential of PS was evaluated in order to determine its charge at different pH value from 3 to 9. As a result, the ξ values for the PS solution were negative throughout the pH range studied, varying from -2.85 mV (pH 3.0) to -21.1 (pH 9). Using tensiometry method, surface tension of the PS at the liquid/air interface was investigated. At 0.05% concentration interfacial tension decreases slowly and reaches an equilibrium value after ~ 8-8.5 hours. The pH was equal to 5.6±0.05. For a PS solution of 0.001% at pH 5.5 PDI was equal to 0.595.

The study of the phenotypic variability of the world crop collections in various conditions is an important step for identification of genetic factors (genes, quantitative trait loci), associated with yield and its components in order to increase the effectiveness of genetic and breeding programs. Current paper presents some results from the comparative analysis of the phenotypic data from the soybean world collection (originators -Kazakhstan,