DNA demethylation during Chrysanthemum floral transition following short-day treatment

Background: Analytical techniques such as methylation-sensitive amplification polymorphism and high-performance liquid chromatography were used to detect variation in DNA methylation of mature Chrysanthemum leaves during the floral transition induced by short-day (SD) treatment. Results: For both early- and late-flowering cultivars, the time from the date of planting to the appearance of the capitulum bud and early blooming were significantly shorter than those of the control. The capitulum development of the early-flowering cultivar was significantly accelerated compared to the control, unlike the late-flowering cultivar. The DNA methylation percentage of leaves was significantly altered during flower development. For the early-flowering cultivar, DNA methylation was 42.2–51.3% before the capitulum bud appeared and 30.5–44.5% after. The respective DNA methylation percentages for the late-flowering cultivar were 43.5–56% and 37.2–44.9%. Conclusions: The DNA methylation percentage of Chrysanthemum leaves decreased significantly during floral development. The decline in DNA methylation was elevated in the early-flowering cultivar compared with the late-flowering cultivar.

Association of kinase insert domain-containing receptor (KDR) gene polymorphism/ haplotypes with recurrent spontaneous abortion and genetic structure

Background: Recurrent spontaneous abortion is one of the diseases that can lead to physical, psychological, and, economical problems for both individuals and society. Recently a few numbers of genetic polymorphisms in kinase insert domain-containing receptor (KDR) gene are examined that can endanger the life of the fetus in pregnant women. Objective: The risk of KDR gene polymorphisms was investigated in Iranian women with idiopathic recurrent spontaneous abortion (RSA). Materials and Methods: A case controlled study was performed. One hundred idiopathic recurrent spontaneous abortion patients with at least two consecutive pregnancy losses before 20 weeks of gestational age with normal karyotypes were included in the study. Also, 100 healthy women with at least one natural pregnancy were studied as control group. Two functional SNPs located in KDR gene; rs1870377 (Q472H), and rs2305948 (V297I) as well as one tag SNP in the intron region (rs6838752) were genotyped by using PCR based restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) technique. Haplotype frequency was determined for these three SNPs’ genotypes. Analysis of genetic STRUCTURE and K means clustering were performed to study genetic variation. Results: Functional SNP (rs1870377) was highly linked to tag SNP (rs6838752) (D´ value=0. 214; χ2 = 16.44, p<0. 001). K means clustering showed that k = 8 as the best fit for the optimal number of genetic subgroups in our studied materials. This result was in agreement with Neighbor Joining cluster analysis. Conclusion: In our study, the allele and genotype frequencies were not associated with RSA between patient and control individuals. Inconsistent results in different populations with different allele frequencies among RSA patients and controls may be due to ethnic variation and used sample size.