Of all the subspecies of Zea mays L. cultivated in the world, sweet maize is the most important for the global economy. The leading seed-growing companies and research institutions around the world are engaged in breeding this crop. To meet the increasing demands of the industry to grain quality, it is important to select appropriate local varieties and lines for hybridization. Local (usually heterogeneous) varieties are a valuable source material for creating self-pollinated lines that contribute to a significant broadening of the genetic base of parental forms used in breeding. The advantages of sweet maize varieties and the interest of the food industry in them make it possible to consider accessions from the maize collection of the N.I. Vavilov Institute (VIR) as a potentially valuable source material for breeding. The present research concentrated on 19 local sweet maize varieties with different grain colors from the VIR collection, that is, 9 varieties with the blue color of ripe grain, 4 with white (colorless) grain, 3 with yellow, and 3 with red. The research included an analysis of zein electrophoretic patterns (protein markers); a study of their biotype composition and the nature of genetic polymorphism, as well as the creation of a protein pattern database for each accession. For a series of accessions with the same varietal name, but different catalog numbers, the degree of their identity was determined from their biotype composition in order to exclude duplication. Zein electrophoresis was carried out in vertical plates of 10 % polyacrylamide gel according to the standard ISTA technique developed with the participation of the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Department of VIR. Zein patterns were used for the first time to electrophoretically study sweet maize varieties with different grain colors. Unique zein patterns were established for all the accessions studied, which makes possible their identification by specific marker components. The results of this work characterize zein electrophoresis as a useful tool for the identification and registration of duplicate accessions in the VIR collection of sweet maize varieties.

This paper presents a study that focuses on American pre-service teachers who taught in France from September to December 2009. The American participants were chosen to compare results with similar programs designed for American students studying abroad. It would be impossible to draw valid and reliable comparisons between the US and French programs because the two exchanges are very different. For future teachers, the intercultural competence they achieve abroad can help prepare them to meet the challenges of the increasingly diverse student population they will encounter in their classrooms when they return home and to be more capable of preparing citizens for the interconnected world of the 21st century.

No abstract

The effective use of maize (Zea mays L.) in agriculture depends entirely on the knowledge of its gene pool, which, in turn, needs to undergo registration and certification as new data become available. Maize is one of the model objects for applying the marker methodology. This article summarizes the results of a long-term study of the maize gene pool at N. I. Vavilov All-Russian Institute of Plant Genetic Resources (VIR) in two main areas: identification of the world genetic diversity of maize (including the most important wild relatives for breeding use), and search for reliable protein (zein) markers of traits valuable for breeding in order to use them in improvement, seed production, and seed control of this crop. Specific examples show the effectiveness of using zein markers in the development of new inbred lines and improvement of the existing ones. On the examples of such agronomic traits as early maturity, explosiveness, and waxiness of maize grain, the possibility of controlling the “inclusion” of these traits in the breeding material with the help of zein markers has been demonstrated. Evidence of the effectiveness of applying zein markers in the selection of parental pairs to obtain highly heterotic hybrids is presented. The nomenclature of zein adopted at VIR after its separation by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE) in an acidic buffer was compared with the nomenclature of zein after polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis with sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS-PAGE) adopted among the foreign scientific community. The studies were performed on a large volume of accessions from the VIR collection as well as on breeding material provided by the country’s leading breeders.

No abstract