Pleurotus eryngii, an edible white-rot fungus, is widespread in Eurasia and northern Africa. It has become a major cultivated mushroom in Asia, with a current global production rate of approximately 3 × 10 5 metrictons/yr. To improve the quality or productivity through breeding, a genetic linkage map is an important component. In this study, genetic linkage map of the P. eryngii was constructed using 98 monokaryotic progeny derived from dikaryon of parental KNR2312 strain derived from haploid meiotic spores. The whole genome sequence of P5 monokaryon from P. eryngii KNR2312 strain by Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) strategy was used to design the SSR markers. 484 primers pairs were identified by SSR Locator I and tested polymorphism via PCR. A total of 241 loci were mapped using Joinmap 4.0, comprising 222 SSR markers, 2 mating type factors, and the 13 INDEL markers. The map consisted of 14 linkage groups spanning 1003 cM at an average marker interval of 4.2 cM. The mating loci, A and B were mapped on linkage groups 4 and 11, respectively. The established linkage map and the genetic information based on NGS could be used for QTL mapping of agronomic traits, marker-assisted breeding that may ultimately lead to outstanding phenotypic characteristics. [Supported by a grant from the IPET (213003-04-3-SBY20), MIFAFF, Republic of Korea.]

Differentiation of Pleurotus eryngii is laborious and time-consuming tasks especially in mycelial status. For development of a method for differentiation of P. eryngii cultivars, simple sequence repeats (SSR) from whole genomic DNA sequence analysis was used for genotyping and two multiplex-SSR primer sets were developed. These SSR primer sets were employed to distinguish 12 cultivars and strains. Five polymorphic markers were selected based on the genotypes. PCR with the each primer produced one to four distinct bands ranging in size from 200 to 300 bp. Polymorphism information content (PIC) values of the five markers were in range of 0.6627 to 0.6848 with an average of 0.6775. Unweighted pair-group method with arithmetic mean clustering analysis based on genetic distances using five SSR markers classified 12 cultivars into 2 clusters. Cluster I and II comprised of 4 and 8 cultivars, respectively. Two multiplex sets, Multi-1 (SSR312 and SSR366) and Multi-2 (SSR178 and SSR277) completely discriminated 12 cultivar and strains with 21 allele with a PIC value of 0.9090. These results might be useful to provide an efficient method for the identification of P. eryngii cultivars with separate PCR reactions. (This work was supported by a grant from the Gold Seed Project [Supported by a grant from the IPET (213003-04-3-WTI11), MIFAFF, Republic of Korea.]

Little millet (Panicum sumatrense) is well known for its salt and drought stress tolerance and high nutritional value, but very limited knowledge of genetic variation and genomic information is available. In this study, a total of 779 primer pairs were designed from the 22,961 EST sequences of switchgrass (Pancium virgatum), of which 48 EST-SSR markers were developed based on the trials of transferability of these primers in little millet. The EST-SSR amplicons showed reproducible single band polymorphism and produced a total of 160 alleles with an average of 3.3 alleles per locus in 37 accessions of little millet. The average values of expected and observed heterozygosities were 0.266 and 0.123, respectively. The polymorphic information content (PIC) values were observed in range of 0.026 to 0.549 with an average of 0.240. The genetic relatedness among the little millet accessions was evaluated by neighbor-joining dendrogram, which grouped all accessions into two distinct groups. The validation thus demonstrated the utility of the switchgrass EST-SSR markers in assessing genomic relationships in little millet. The findings from this study could be useful for designing strategies for the identification of diverse germplasm for conservation and future molecular breeding programs for little millet.

The objective of this research was to develop Near-Infrared Reflectance Spectroscopy (NIRS) model for amylose and protein contents analysis of large accessions of rice germplasm. A total of 511 accessions of rice germplasm were obtained from National Agrobiodiversity Center to make calibration equation. The accessions were measured by NIRS for both brown and milled brown rice which was additionally assayed by iodine and Kjeldahl method for amylose and crude protein contents. The range of amylose and protein content in milled brown rice were 6.15-32.25% and 4.72-14.81%, respectively. The correlation coefficient (R 2 ), standard error of calibration (SEC) and slope of brown rice were 0.906, 1.741, 0.995 in amylose and 0.941, 0.276, 1.011 in protein, respectively, whereas R 2 , SEC and slope of milled brown rice values were 0.956, 1.159, 1.001 in amylose and 0.982, 0.164, 1.003 in protein, respectively. Validation results of this NIRS equation showed a high coefficient determination in prediction for amylose (0.962) and protein (0.986), and also low standard error in prediction (SEP) for amylose (2.349) and protein (0.415). These results suggest that NIRS equation model should be practically applied for determination of amylose and crude protein contents in large accessions of rice germplasm.

Understanding the genetic variation among landrace collections is important for crop improvement and utilization of valuable genetic resources. The present study was carried out to analyse the genetic diversity and associated population structure of 621 foxtail millet accessions of Korean landraces using 22 EST-SSR markers. A total of 121 alleles were detected from all accessions with an average of 5.5 alleles per microsatellite locus. The average values of gene diversity, polymorphism information content, and expected heterozygosity were 0.518, 0.594, and 0.034, respectively. Following the unweighted neighbor-joining method with arithmetic mean based clustering using binary data of polymorphic markers, the genotypes were grouped into 3 clusters, and population structure analysis also separated into 3 populations. Principal coordinate analysis (PCoA) explained a variation of 13.88% and 10.99% by first and second coordinates, respectively. However, in PCoA analysis, clear population-level clusters could not be found. This pattern of distribution might be the result of gene flow via germplasm exchanges in nearby regions. The results indicate that these Korean landraces of foxtail millet exhibit a moderate level of diversity. This study demonstrated that molecular marker strategies could contribute to a better understanding of the genetic structure in foxtail millet germplasm, and provides potentially useful information for developing conservation and breeding strategies.