TY - JOUR T1 - Iron and magnesium concentrations of mint accessions (Mentha spp.) JF - Plant Physiol Biochem Y1 - 2007 DO - 10.1016/j.plaphy.2007.03.023 A1 - A Arzani A1 - H Zeinali A1 - K Razmjo SP - 323–9 KW - Cluster Analysis KW - Iron KW - Magnesium KW - Mentha KW - Phylogeny AB - Plant foods can contribute significantly to human nutrition and health, because they contain almost all essential human nutrients. However, nutrient composition varies among different plant foods. Improvement of nutritional quality of our food supply, especially with respect to essential nutrient minerals, such as magnesium, iron and zinc, could be an important goal of vegetable crops. There is little information available on essential mineral concentration of mint (Mentha spp.). This study was conducted to evaluate some micronutrient minerals of twelve Iranian mint accessions, three of which belonging to Mentha longifolia (Mzin5, Mzin6 and Mzin11) and the remaining were Mentha spicata L species (Mzin1, Mzin2, Mzin3, Mzin4, Mzin7, Mzin8, Mzin9, Mzin10, and Mzin12). This report is assigned to two essential human nutrients, iron (Fe) and magnesium (Mg) concentrations of two mint herbage harvests in 12 mint clones within each of two studied years. Results of analysis of variance indicated a significant difference among accessions and a non-significant difference between species for Mg and Fe concentrations. Mean comparisons showed that Mzin2, Mzin12 (both belong to M. spicata) and Mzin6 (belongs to M. longifolia) possess the highest Fe concentration. Furthermore, Mzins 5, 6 and 11 belong to M. longifolia as well as Mzins 2 and 10 belong to M. spicata did not significantly differ and all included the first ranking group for Mg concentration. Fe concentration averaged on the first harvest ranged from 134mg/kg for Mzin4 genotype (belongs to M. spicata) to 210mg/kg to for Mzin5 genotype (belongs to M. longifolia), while Fe concentration at the second harvest varied from 315mg/kg for Mzin1 to 582mg/kg for Mzin12. At the first harvest, Mg concentration ranged from 748mg/kg for Mzin1 to 1174 for Mzin5. At the second harvest, Mg concentration varied from 1171mg/kg for Mzin9 to 1618mg/kg for Mzin11. It is hence concluded that the magnesium and iron concentrations of Mentha species are comparable to those reported for other leafy vegetable crops. Therefore, this is evidence that this herb is rich in some essential nutrient minerals, especially Fe and Mg which are essential for human health. VL - 45 ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Polyglutamine variation in a flowering time protein correlates with island age in a Hawaiian plant radiation JF - BMC Evol Biol Y1 - 2007 DO - 10.1186/1471-2148-7-105 A1 - Charlotte Lindqvist A1 - Liisa Laakkonen A1 - Victor A Albert SP - 105 KW - Alleles KW - DNA: Plant KW - Genes: Plant KW - Hawaii KW - Mentha KW - Minisatellite Repeats KW - Peptides KW - Phylogeny KW - Plant Proteins KW - Selection: Genetic KW - Sequence Homology: Amino Acid KW - Species Specificity AB - BACKGROUND: A controversial topic in evolutionary developmental biology is whether morphological diversification in natural populations can be driven by expansions and contractions of amino acid repeats in proteins. To promote adaptation, selection on protein length variation must overcome deleterious effects of multiple correlated traits (pleiotropy). Thus far, systems that demonstrate this capacity include only ancient or artificial morphological diversifications. The Hawaiian Islands, with their linear geological sequence, present a unique environment to study recent, natural radiations. We have focused our research on the Hawaiian endemic mints (Lamiaceae), a large and diverse lineage with paradoxically low genetic variation, in order to test whether a direct relationship between coding-sequence repeat diversity and morphological change can be observed in an actively evolving system. RESULTS: Here we show that in the Hawaiian mints, extensive polyglutamine (CAG codon repeat) polymorphism within a homolog of the pleiotropic flowering time protein and abscisic acid receptor FCA tracks the natural environmental cline of the island chain, consequent with island age, across a period of 5 million years. CAG expansions, perhaps following their natural tendency to elongate, are more frequent in colonists of recently-formed, nutrient-rich islands than in their forebears on older, nutrient-poor islands. Values for several quantitative morphological variables related to reproductive investment, known from Arabidopsis fca mutant studies, weakly though positively correlate with increasing glutamine tract length. Together with protein modeling of FCA, which indicates that longer polyglutamine tracts could induce suboptimally mobile functional domains, we suggest that CAG expansions may form slightly deleterious alleles (with respect to protein function) that become fixed in founder populations. CONCLUSION: In the Hawaiian mint FCA system, we infer that contraction of slightly deleterious CAG repeats occurred because of competition for resources along the natural environmental cline of the island chain. The observed geographical structure of FCA variation and its correlation with morphologies expected from Arabidopsis mutant studies may indicate that developmental pleiotropy played a role in the diversification of the mints. This discovery is important in that it concurs with other suggestions that repetitive amino acid motifs might provide a mechanism for driving morphological evolution, and that variation at such motifs might permit rapid tuning to environmental change. VL - 7 ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Identification, detection and transmission of a new vitivirus from Mentha JF - Arch Virol Y1 - 2007 DO - 10.1007/s00705-007-1030-1 A1 - I E Tzanetakis A1 - J D Postman A1 - R R Martin SP - 2027–33 KW - Animals KW - Aphids KW - DNA Primers KW - Flexiviridae KW - Mentha KW - Molecular Sequence Data KW - Phylogeny KW - Plant Diseases KW - Plant Leaves KW - Polymerase Chain Reaction KW - Sequence Analysis: DNA AB - Mentha x gracilis 'Variegata' is an ornamental clone with a phenotype caused by virus infection. Several clones were ordered from mail-order nurseries in an attempt to identify a virus consistently associated with symptoms. One of these clones did not exhibit typical 'Variegata' symptoms, and steps were taken to identify any agents causing the 'off-type' symptoms. One of the viruses identified in the atypical 'Variegata' clone is a previously unknown virus, a member of the family Flexiviridae. Sequence and phylogenetic analysis indicate that the virus, designated as mint virus-2, is related to members of the species Grapevine virus A, Grapevine virus B and Heracleum latent virus, placing it in the genus Vitivirus. A detection protocol for the virus has been developed, and the mint aphid (Ovatus crataegarius) was able to transmit the virus in the presence of a helper virus but not from single infected plants. VL - 152 ER -