As a newly-developed method for pretreating lignocellulosic biomass, phosphoric acid plus hydrogen peroxide (PHP) was employed as a pretreatment solvent to fractionate wheat straw. The structural properties of the derived lignin were elucidated in particular. Results indicated that 100.0 g of wheat straw (dry basis) yielded 39.7 g of cellulose-rich fraction, 4.7 g of oligosaccharides, and 4.5 g of lignin at mild conditions of 50 °C within 1.0 h. The resultant cellulose-rich fraction was highly accessible to hydrolytic enzymes with 88–96% cellulose–glucose conversion in 24 h, suggesting a great potential for producing biofuels. The derived lignin was characterized as having high purity (≤1.0% residual carbohydrates) and relatively low molecular weight (M w < 1436 g mol–1) and being abundant in carboxylic acid functional groups. According to the 31P, 13C, and 2D heteronuclear single quantum coherence nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy results on the derived lignin, the degree of condensation was quite limited during PHP pretreatment, the oxidants, produced as HO+ or HO· in pretreatment, were substantially responsible for the extensive ring-opening on the aromatic substructure. The obtained results offered the technical feasibility of fractionating lignocellulosic biomass using PHP and a better understanding of the delignification mechanisms for PHP pretreatment.

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To map the QTLs of Fusarium moniliforme ear rot resistance in Zea mays L., a total of 230 F2 individuals, derived from a single cross between inbred maize lines R15 (resistant) and Ye478 (susceptible), were genotyped for genetic map construction using simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers and amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) markers. We used 778 pairs of SSR primers and 63 combinations of AFLP primers to detect the polymorphisms between parents, R15 and Ye478. From the polymorphic 30 AFLP primer combinations and 159 SSR primers, we scored 260 loci in the F2 population, among which 8 SSR and 13 AFLP loci could not be assigned to any of the linkage groups. An integrated molecular genetic linkage map was constructed by the remaining 151 SSR and 88 AFLP markers, which distributed throughout the 10 linkage groups of maize and spanned the genome of about 3463.5 cM with an average of 14.5 cM between two markers. On 4 chromosomes, we detected 5 putative segregation distortion regions (SDRs), including 2 new ones (SDR2 and SDR7). The other 3 SDRs were located near the regions where gametophyte genes were mapped, indicating that segregation distortion could be partially caused by gametophytic factors.

No abstract

An unusually severe snow disaster in southern China in 2008 exposed variation among different species of bamboo: some species were highly tolerant to low-temperature damage, but some suffered extensive damage or death. Therefore, this study was conducted to determine the effects of cold stress on endogenous hormones and the expression of homologs of CBF 1 in four bamboo species differing in their tolerance to cold. All four bamboo species were subjected to cold stress with a temperature gradient (10, 5, 0, -5, and -10°C), and each low temperature treatment was maintained for 48 h. Results showed that ABA, GA 1 , and GA 4 were significantly affected by cold stress: ABA increased with cold stress in all species, while GA 1 and GA 4 reduced with cold stress. ABA levels and the ratio of ABA/(GA 1 ? GA 4 ) in leaves of Neosinocalamus affinis and Bambusa rigida were both higher than those of hybrid bamboo (Bambusa pervariabilis 9 Dendrocalamopsis grandis) and Dendrocalamus latiflorus for all treatments, while GA 1 and GA 4 were conversely lower as compared to the hybrid variety and D. latiflorus. Moreover, CBF 1 homolog was up-regulated during cold stress, with higher expression levels in the leaves of cold-tolerant species than cold-sensitive ones. Results revealed that high levels of ABA and CBF 1 , as well as the ABA/GA s balance, are important in increased plant resistance to cold stress.