Erysiphenecatoris a destructive fungal pathogen that compromises grapevine yield and quality, leading to substantial economic losses. Therefore, elucidating host resistance mechanisms is essential. In this study, we identified an ethylene response factor, VqERF1B, that exhibits sustained high expression during E.necatorinfection in Chinese wild grape Vitisquinquangularisaccession ‘Danfeng-2’. Transient overexpression of VqERF1Bin grape leaves enhanced resistance to E.necatorby elevating transcript levels of pathogenesis-related (PR) genes, including PR1, PR2, PR5, and PR10. Conversely, silencing VqERF1Bresulted in increased susceptibility. Moreover, transgenic Arabidopsislines stably overexpressing VqERF1Bexhibited enhanced resistance to powdery mildew, associated with elevated PRgene expression and increased accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS). A series of assays identified VqMAPK3, a phosphorylated mitogen-activated protein kinase, as a direct interactor of VqERF1B. Furthermore, VqERF1B was shown to bind directly to the promoters of VqPRs, thereby activating their transcription. Notably, the VqMAPK3-VqERF1B complex exhibited greater transactivation activity on VqPRpromoters than VqERF1B alone, indicating that VqMAPK3 positively modulates VqERF1B-mediated transcription of PRgenes. This work advances understanding of the molecular basis of grape resistance to E.necatorand provides a foundation for molecular breeding strategies.

Tiller number represents a critical agronomic trait determining sugarcane yield. Strigolactones (SLs) are plant hormones regulating plant architecture. D27, an essential enzyme in the SL biosynthetic pathway, catalyzes a reversible isomerization reaction. ScD27.2, the D27homolog in sugarcane, contains abiotic stress-responsive elements in its promoter, suggesting its potential importance in SL biosynthesis and stress tolerance. ScD27.2potentially optimizes sugarcane agronomic traits, particularly tiller number and yield. Understanding its mechanisms will advance the development of high-yielding, stress-tolerant sugarcane varieties. To investigate the role of D27in sugarcane tillering, the key carotene isomerase gene ScD27.2was silenced (viaRNAi) and overexpressed (OE) in sugarcane cultivar ‘XTT22’ plantlets. ScD27-RNAi-2 sugarcane exhibited decreasedScD27.2 expression and increased tiller numbers compared to the wild type ‘XTT22’. Conversely, overexpression lines (ScD27-OE-1, ScD27-OE-5, and ScD27-OE-9) showed increased ScD27.2expression and decreased tiller numbers. ScD27-OE-9 demonstrated notable lateral bud germination, while ScD27-RNAi-2 exhibited reduced drought tolerance. Under normal light and water management conditions, transgenic sugarcane plants showed significant differences in tiller number and plant height. During extended droughtconditions, ScD27-RNAi-2 height was significantly reduced compared to wild type ‘XTT22’ and ScD27-OE-9, manifesting a dwarf, multi-tiller phenotype. Additionally, ScD27-RNAi-2 showed significantlyreduced SLs content. These findings demonstrate that ScD27.2regulates tillering under drought stress, likely through SL biosynthesis, and that its drought response may be mediated by the transcription factor ScMYB44.

Head-splitting is a prevalent physiological disorder in cabbage that causes substantial economic losses. However, the genetic factors and molecular mechanisms underlying head-splitting resistance remain largely unexplored. This study identified a genomic region (qNLQ3.1) for head-splitting resistance on chromosome C03 through the combination of QTL-seq and GPS analysis in an F₂population derived from hybridizing two cabbage inbred lines, ‘Dazhengfu’ (ZF, susceptible) and ‘103’ (resistant).Traditional genetic linkage analysis narrowed qNLQ3.1to a 74.6 kb region. Furthermore, comparative analysis of the two parental linesusing transcriptomic and metabolic profilingdemonstrated the crucial role of hormones in regulating head-splitting resistance. Bol028000, encoding a homologue of Arabidopsis Cytokinin Response Factor 3 (CRF3), emerged as a promising candidate for head-splitting resistance and was subsequently validated through Sanger sequencing and quantitative RT-PCR (qRT-PCR). Subcellular localisation analysis revealed that Bol028000was mainly expressed in the nucleus. Additionally, one kompetitive allele-specific PCR (KASP) marker from Bol028000was developed and utilized to screen 42 inbred lines. These findings enhance the theoretical understanding of head-splitting resistance and provide valuable insights for the molecular breeding of head-splitting resistant cabbages.

The embryo rescue technique plays an essential role in developing new seedless grape varieties. To enhance the efficiency of seedless grape embryo rescue breeding, this study evaluated 22 hybrid combinations and systematically investigated the effects of parental genotypes and plant hormones on embryo development and germination. Additionally, an in-depth analysis was conducted on the conversion of abnormal plantlets. Results indicate that ‘Ruby Seedless’, ‘Delight’, ‘Huozhouheiyu’, ‘Zitian Seedless’, and ‘Zhengyan Seedless’ are suitable as maternal parents, whereas ‘Zitian Seedless’, ‘Shennongxiangfeng’, ‘Hongqitezao’, and ‘Guibao’ perform optimally as paternal parents. Among these, the crosses ‘Ruby Seedless×Shennongxiangfeng’ and ‘Ruby Seedless×Zitian Seedless’ exhibited the highest embryo rescue efficiency, with embryo development rates of 55.05 and 59.76%, yielding 1,348 and 2,235 viable plantlets, respectively. When 1.0mg L^–1zeatin (ZT) was added to the MM3 medium supplemented with 0.2mg L^–1indole-3-acetic acid (IAA), theembryo development rate of ‘Ruby Seedless×Zitian Seedless’ increased by 64.73%. In the WPM germination medium, supplementation with 0.2mg L^–1ZT and 0.2mg L^–1IAA resulted in the highest germination rate of 85.71% for the hybrid combination ‘Huozhouheiyu×Shine Muscat’. Furthermore, 3,365 abnormal plantlets were rescued viadirect transformation and hypocotyl-induced adventitious bud regeneration, among which 1,234 were transformed into normal plantlets. Following hybridization, a total of 4,287 plants were successfully acclimatized and transplanted. This study provides theoretical insights to improve the efficiency of embryo rescue breeding in seedless grapes and offers valuable genetic resources for future breeding programs.

High-throughput single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) arrays have emerged as essential genotyping tools, significantly accelerating breeding programs and advancing basic research. In this study, a high-throughput 10K SNP genotyping array for wax gourd was developed using genotyping by target sequencing (GBTS), featuring 10,722 SNPs evenly distributed across all 12 chromosomes, including 278 functional loci associated with key economic traits. To demonstrate its utility, genetic distances among 19 elite inbred lines were calculated from SNP data and correlated with heterosis for single fruit weight. The results revealed that greater genetic distance was associated with higher middle parent heterosis (MPH) for single fruit weight. Furthermore, 56 commercial wax gourd cultivars collected from eight regions were selected and genotyped. Population structure analysis, phylogenetic analysis, and principal component analysis (PCA) collectively indicated that these cultivars fall into two major groups. Group I, comprising black or dark green skinned wax gourds, exhibited lower genetic diversity than Group II, which includes green or light green skinned varieties, reflecting shorter genetic distances within Group I. Finally, 60 polymorphic SNPs were used to construct DNA fingerprints for distinguishing the 56 cultivars. As the first high-throughput genotyping platform for wax gourd, this SNP array provides an effective and powerful tool for genetic analysis.

In China, Xinjiang is a relatively independent epidemic region of wheat stripe rust, caused by Pucciniastriiformisf. sp. tritici, due to great population genetic divergence of Xinjiang with other inland epidemic regions. In this region, race evolution was usually slower than inland populations. However, many new races have recently been found, and therefore, it is necessary for more understanding of the virulence evolution of the Xinjiang population. So, in this study, a 65 sexual progenies, derived from a Xinjiang single-urediospore isolate BGTB-1 of P.striiformisf. sp. triticiby selfing on alternate host barberry (Berberisaggregata). It was phenotyped on the 25 single Yrlines, and genotyped by 19 kompetitive allele-specific PCR-single nucleotide polymorphism (KASP-SNP) markers. As a result, the 65 progenies were identified as 56 various virulence patterns (VPs), and neither of which was identical to the parental isolate, showed 100% virulence variation. Compared with the parental isolate, of all progenies, 39 (60.0%) had increased virulence, and 18 (27.7%) had decreased virulence. All progenies exhibited avirulence to Yr10, Yr15, Yr32, and YrTr1loci, and avirulence and virulence segregation at the remaining 21 Yrresistance loci. The results showed avirulence to Yr5, Yr7, and Yr76(A:V≈3:1) loci is controlled by a single dominant gene, and that to Yr6, Yr25, and Yr44(A:V≈1:3) loci by a single recessive gene. However, avirulence to the remaining 15 resistant loci including Yr1, Yr2, Yr3, Yr4, Yr8, Yr9, Yr17, Yr26(=Yr24), Yr28, Yr29, Yr43, YrSP, Yr27, YrA, and YrExp2, with various avirulence and virulence segregation ratios, is controlled by two genes with different gene effects, indicating complex genetic traits of the parental isolate. Totally, 65 dissimilar genotypes detected among progenies using overall molecular markers, by which a linkage map was constructed, with a genetic distance of 441.0 cM. Interestingly, although the parental isolate was avirulent to Yr5, but 17 progenies showed virulence, showing the change of pathogenicity from avirulence to virulence at this resistance locus. It was for the first time to report that progenies with virulence to Yr5produced sexually from avirulent parental isolate at this resistance locus. To our knowledge, this study offers an insight into inheritance, sexual reproduction and virulence variation of P.striiformisf. sp. triticiin Xinjiang, facilitating us to understand evolution of the rust pathogen in this region and accounting for Xinjiang population distinguished form other inland populations. Additionally, it is necessary to further confirm the roles of sexual reproduction in the emergence of new races and affecting population genetic diversity of P.striiformisf. sp. triticiunder natural conditions in Xinjiang.

Rice is one of the most important staple crops globally. Rice plant diseases can severely reduce crop yields and, in extreme cases, lead to total production loss. Early diagnosis enables timely intervention, mitigates disease severity, supports effective treatment strategies, and reduces reliance on excessive pesticide use. Traditional machine learning approaches have been applied for automated rice disease diagnosis; however, these methods depend heavily on manual image preprocessing and handcrafted feature extraction, which are labor-intensive and time-consuming and often require domain expertise. Recently, end-to-end deep learning (DL) models have been introduced for this task, but they often lack robustness and generalizability across diverse datasets. To address these limitations, we propose a novel end-to-end training framework for convolutional neural network (CNN) and attention-based model ensembles (E2ETCA). This framework integrates features from two state-of-the-art (SOTA) CNN models, Inception V3 and DenseNet-201, and an attention-based vision transformer (ViT) model. The fused features are passed through an additional fully connected layer with softmax activation for final classification. The entire process is trained end-to-end, enhancing its suitability for real-world deployment. Furthermore, we extract and analyze the learned features using a support vector machine (SVM), a traditional machine learning classifier, to provide comparative insights. We evaluate the proposed E2ETCA framework on three publicly available datasets, the Mendeley Rice Leaf Disease Image Samples dataset, the Kaggle Rice Diseases Image dataset, the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute dataset, and a combined version of all three. Using standard evaluation metrics (accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-score), our framework demonstrates superior performance compared to existing SOTA methods in rice disease diagnosis, with potential applicability to other agricultural disease detection tasks.

The strawberry crimp nematode (Aphelenchoidesfragariae) is a serious pathogen of ornamental crops and a significant quarantine concern in approximately 50 countries and regions, including China. A nematode population belonging to the genus Aphelenchoideswas isolated from symptomatic leaves of fuchsia plants (Fuchsia×hybridaHort. ex Sieb. & Voss.) in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China. Morphological and morphometric characteristics were determined using light microscopy and scanning electron microscopy. Detailed examination revealed diagnostic features consistent with A.fragariae. Three ribosomal DNA (rDNA) regions, i.e., partial small subunit(SSU) rRNA, D2-D3 expansion segments of the large subunit (LSU) rRNA, andthe internal transcribed spacer (ITS), were amplified and sequenced. Bayesian phylogenetic analyses based on these sequences placed the isolate in a well-supported monophyletic clade withreference A.fragariaespecimens, clearly separated from other Aphelenchoidesspecies. Furthermore, host-suitability assays demonstrated that this nematode population not only infects and reproduces on Fuchsia×hybrida, but also on Fragariaananassaand Pterisvittata, two known hosts of A.fragariae. Collectively, morphological,molecular, and host-range evidence confirm the identification of this nematode as A.fragariae. To our knowledge, this represents the first molecular and morphological confirmation of A.fragariaein China, and the first report ofFuchsia×hybridaas a natural host for this species.

The advantages of genome selection (GS) in animal and plant breeding are self-evident. Traditional parametric models have disadvantage in better fit the increasingly large sequencing data and capture complex effects accurately. Machine learning models have demonstrated remarkable potential in addressing these challenges. In this study, we introduced the concept of mixed kernel functions to explore the performance of support vector machine regression (SVR) in GS. Six single kernel functions (SVR_L, SVR_C, SVR_G, SVR_P, SVR_S, SVR_L) and four mixed kernel functions (SVR_GS, SVR_GP, SVR_LS, SVR_LP) were used to predict genome breeding values. The prediction accuracy, mean squared error (MSE) and mean absolute error (MAE) were used as evaluation indicators to compare with two traditional parametric models (GBLUP, BayesB) and two popular machine learning models (RF, KcRR). The results indicate that in most cases, the performance of the mixed kernel function model significantly outperforms that of GBLUP, BayesB and single kernel function. For instance, for T1 in the pig dataset, the predictive accuracy of SVR_GS is improved by 10% compared to GBLUP, and by approximately 4.4 and 18.6% compared to SVR_G and SVR_S respectively. For E1 in the wheat dataset, SVR_GS achieves 13.3% higher prediction accuracy than GBLUP. Among single kernel functions, the Laplacian and Gaussian kernel functions yield similar results, with the Gaussian kernel function performing better. The mixed kernel function notably reduces the MSE and MAE when compared to all single kernel functions. Furthermore, regarding runtime, SVR_GS and SVR_GP mixed kernel functions run approximately three times faster than GBLUP in the pig dataset, with only a slight increase in runtime compared to the single kernel function model. In summary, the mixed kernel function model of SVR demonstrates speed and accuracy competitiveness, and the model such as SVR_GS has important application potential for GS.

Femoral head necrosis (FHN) is a common leg disorder in the poultry industry often leads to significant cartilage damage. The mechanism behind abnormal apoptosis in FHN broilers, leading to cartilage damage, remains unclear; although endoplasmic reticulum stress (ERS) has been found to play a role in glucocorticoid-induced FHN broilers. In this study, we collected samples from broilers with femoral head separation (FHS) and femoral head separation accompanied with growth plate lacerations (FHSL) in a broiler farm. The aim was to investigate the potential association between the severity of FHN, bone remodeling and cartilage damage. Additionally, primary chondrocytes were treated with methylprednisolone (MP) to construct an invitroFHN model, followed by inhibition or activation of ERS or hypoxiainduciblefactor-1α(HIF-1α) to further investigate the mechanism of apoptosis in cartilage. The results suggested that cartilage appeared to be the appropriate tissue to investigate the potential mechanisms of FHN, as the degree of cartilage damage was found to be closely related to the severity of the disease. Bone quality was only affected in FHSL broilers, although factors related to bone metabolism were significantly altered among FHN-affected broilers. In addition, cartilage in FHN-affected broilers exhibited high levels of apoptosis and upregulated expression of ERS-related and HIF-1α, which was consistent with both invivoand invitrofindings after MP treatment. The results were further supported by treatment with HIF-1αor ERS inhibition or activation. In conclusion, bone remodeling and cartilage homeostasis were affected in FHN broilers, but only cartilage damage was significantly exacerbated with FHN development. Moreover, activation of ERS or HIF-1αresulted in apoptosis in cartilage, thus exhibiting a significant correlation with FHN severity.