Comparative transcriptome analysis of cultivated and wild seeds of Salvia hispanica (chia)

Abstract

Salvia hispanica (chia) constituted an important crop for pre-Columbian civilizations and is considered a superfood for its rich content of essential fatty acids and proteins. In this study, we performed the first comprehensive comparative transcriptome analysis between seeds from cultivated varieties and from accessions collected from native wild populations in Mexico. From the 69,873 annotated transcripts assembled de novo , enriched functional categories and pathways revealed that the lipid metabolism was one of the most activated processes. Expression changes were detected among wild and cultivated groups and among growth conditions in transcripts responsible for triacylglycerol and fatty acid synthesis and degradation. We also quantified storage protein fractions that revealed variation concerning nutraceutical proteins such as albumin and glutelin. Genetic diversity estimated with 23,641 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) revealed that most of the variation remains in the wild populations, and that a wild-type cultivated variety is genetically related to wild accessions. Additionally, we reported 202 simple sequence repeat (SSRs) markers useful for population genetic studies. Overall, we provided transcript variation that can be used for breeding programs to further develop chia varieties with enhanced nutraceutical traits and tools to explore the genetic diversity and history of this rediscovered plant.

Kaon oscillations and baryon asymmetry of the Universe

“…For example, the approximate SU (2) L ⊗ SU (2) R chiral symmetry is spontaneously broken into SU (2) V , i.e., the isospin symmetry at low energies in QCD, which can be described under an effective theory of the so-called σ-model [37]. In this case, the lightest isoscalar scalar σ or f 0 (500) meson with mass of ∼ 450 MeV serves as the quark condensate for SSB [38], a similar role to Higgs in electroweak SSB. The resulting pNGB particles are the three lightest pseudoscalar mesons (π ± and π 0 ).…”

Coupled-channel approach in hadron–hadron scattering

“…The first-iterated solution of the N/D method has the advantage of avoiding the generation of spurious LHC discontinuities which could occur when coupling channels with different thresholds if using a perturbative approximation for the matrix N (s), Eq. (5.1), as well as the IAM [169,170,66]. These possible artifacts are also avoided by fully solving the N/D method for a given ∆(p 2 ), similarly as in Sec.…”

Are there narrow flavor-exotic tetraquarks in large- Nc QCD?

“…In the case of mesons made of light quarks (u, d, s) and, in particular, involving the lightest pseudoscalar mesons, chiral perturbation theory (ChPT) [37,38] provides the general effective Lagrangian suited for the description of the corresponding interactions at low energies. An extension of the energy domain of validity of ChPT is done with the aid of the unitarization condition of the scattering amplitudes, together with the use of dispersion relations [39,40].…”

“…In the case of light quarks, a detailed study of the problem has been presented in [39,40]. The general result is that, in the scalar-isoscalar s-channel of ππ scattering, a dynamical resonance, corresponding to the observed f 0 (500) resonance, emerges, having a dominant structure of two quarks and two antiquarks, in distinction from the ordinary mesons [51].…”