Towards the Domestication of Jatropha: The Integration of Sciences

Abstract

N. Carels approximately 170 known species. Recent phylogenetic studies in the genus Jatropha based on random ampli fi ed polymorphic DNA (RAPD), ampli fi ed fragment length polymorphisms (AFLP, Vos et al. 1995 ) and nuclear ribosomal-DNA internal transcribed spacer (nrDNA ITS) markers (Sudheer et al. 2009a ) showed that J. curcas is genetically more similar to J. integerrima Jacq. than to any other species of genus Jatropha .J. curcas is a stem-succulent deciduous tree of ~5 m in height that produces seeds rich in oil (27-40%). Crude oil of J. curcas meets the fuel quality standards of rapeseed and can be easily converted into biodiesel that meets US and European standards by transesteri fi cation.J. curcas is currently considered as undomesticated; its physiology and agronomy remain to be clari fi ed, and thus seed yield is poorly predictable (Ginwal et al. 2004 ) . However, in the interval of just 3 years from 2007 to 2010, great efforts have been made by the scienti fi c community, particularly in India, to gather data on the genetic diversity and interspeci fi c hybridization of this species, as well as from analyses using the complete range of available biotechnologies, including in vitro propagation, tissue culture, genetic transformation, transcriptome description and genome sequencing. Forward and reverse genomics approaches are now beginning to be employed in J. curcas research.The twenty-fi rst century is witnessing an unprecedented level of scienti fi c integration, which in the case of biology, has led to the concept of systems biology . This concept can be de fi ned as the study of the interactions between the components of biological systems and how these interactions give rise to the functioning and behavior of that system. In the case of genetics, the system also includes the environment of the biological entity under consideration because it conditions the spectrum of stimuli that are used to score the genome performance. As a consequence, systems biology implies high-throughput technologies of data collection, information technology for data management and mathematical modeling.Genetic correlations can initially be investigated by examining domesticated crops as an entity that represents a particular mode of the expression of a plant species. Related to this notion, there is a common suite of traits known as the "domestication syndrome" (Doebley et al. 2006 ;Tang et al. 2010 ) , which represents the kind of complexity that is appropriate to the new perspective that plant breeding must be addressed with the support of systems biology.Here, I propose to discuss the current knowledge and emerging technologies available from model crops with the underlying prospect of their application to the selective breeding of J. curcas . Mating SystemJ. curcas is monoecious, with separate male and female fl owers, and is a predominantly outbreeding species, as shown by its high abortion rate, low seed-ovule ratio, low fecundity rate, high pollinator attractiveness, delayed stigma receptive

Desempenho agronômico e ganho genético pela seleção de pinhão-manso em três regiões do Brasil

“…O espaçamento adotado foi de 4x2 m. Os ensaios foram implantados com mudas de aproximadamente 60 dias de cultivo. As práticas de manejo basearam-se em Dias et al (2007), com adaptações de acordo com os resultados de pesquisa com pinhão-manso no Brasil e no mundo Carels et al, 2013;Resende et al, 2013).…”

“…Portanto, é importante que os materiais sejam avaliados em diferentes regiões com potencial para produção (Laviola et al, 2010;Bahadur et al, 2013;Carels et al, 2013;Juhász et al, 2013). Neste sentido, a rede de pesquisa do projeto Pesquisa, Desenvolvimento e Inovação em Pinhão-Manso para a Produção de Biodiesel vem realizando ensaios em diferentes instituições de pesquisa, com o objetivo de selecionar plantas adaptadas a diferentes regiões do Brasil (Laviola et al, 2013a).…”

Oleosomas de semillas de <em>Jatropha curcas</em> L. como estimadores de diversidad en poblaciones del Sur de México

“…curcas es una planta cuyo más probable centro de origen es Mesoamérica (Carels, 2009;OvandoMedina et al, 2013;Sunil et al, 2013) y es considerada en proceso de domesticación (Achten et al, 2010;Carels, 2013), lo cual, junto con el hecho que en la región mesoamericana es propagada casi exclusivamente por medios vegetativos, podría significar que sus poblaciones tienen baja diversidad. Sin embargo, en varios estudios recientes se ha mostrado que existe alta variabilidad tanto genotípica, detectada con marcadores moleculares (OvandoMedina et al, 2011;Magaña-Ramos, 2013;Chikara et al, 2013), como fenotípica (Ovando-Medina al., 2011;Pérez-Castillo, 2012).…”

“…Esta es la primera vez que se utilizan datos de oleosomas de la semilla para estimar la variabilidad poblacional en esta especie. Aunque en los últimos diez años se ha incrementado sustancialmente el número de investigaciones con la planta J. curcas (Achten et al, 2010;Carels, 2013), impulsado por el interés en la obtención de materia prima para fabricar biocombustibles, se ha dado poca atención al estudio microscópico de los oleosomas de la semilla. Los estudios de proteómica de los oleosomas de J. curcas son abundantes Ming-Feng et al, 2009;Mao-Sheng et al, 2011;Popluechai et al, 2011), sin embargo, solo dos reportes se enfocaron en el análisis de los oleosomas por sí mismos (Gu et al, 2012;Ishii et al, 2013).…”

Chemical and Physical Mutagenesis in Jatropha curcas

“…In fact, the ultimate breeding objectives of the J. curcas accessions are to reduce toxicity and improve productivity under adverse climatic conditions. To increase genetic diversity, mutagenesis can be applied for plant improvement (Maghuly and Laimer 2013;Carels 2013).…”