The Mutation Breeding and Mutagenic Effect of Air Plasma on Penicillium Chrysogenum

Low temperature air plasma was used as the mutation tool for penicillin-producing strain Penicillium chrysogenum. The discharge conditions were RF power of 360 W, temperature of 40℃ in a sealed chamber, and pressure of 10 Pa to 30 Pa. The result showed that the kinetics of the survival rate followed a typical saddle-shaped curve. Based on a statistic analysis, at the treating duration of 10 min, the positive mutation rate was as high as 37.5% while the negative mutation rate was low. The colonial morphology changed obviously when the plasma treating duration reached or exceeded 45 min. After both primary and secondary screening, a mutant designated as aPc051310 with high productivity of penicillin was obtained, and a strong mutagenic effect on P. chrysogenurn was observed in the process. It was proved that after five generations, the mutant aPc051310 still exhibits a high productivity. All the results prove that the plasma mutation method could be developed as a convenient and effective tool to breed high-yield strains in the fermentation industry, while expanding the plasm application at the same time.

Breeding of an F_1 Hybrid Cultivar Hangjiao Huangshuai by Space Mutation Breeding Technique

Hangjiao Huangshuai is a processing type yellow pepper F1 hybrid cultivar bred with the inbred line 032-1-2-1-1-H-H bred through space treatment as the female parent and 082-1-1-H-H free of space treatment as the male parent. The fruit is in the shape of long finger with few wrinkles and good gloss, and tastes very spicy .The fruit has a vertical diameter of 17.5 cm, a transverse diameter of 1.6 cm, a fresh thickness of 0,20 cm and a single fruit weight of 15.6 g. It is yellowishgreen in the early maturation stage and yellow in the late maturation stage. The cultivar exhibited high resistance to pepper blight, viral diseases and powdery mildew, and showed an average yield of 56 493,0 kg/hm^2. It could be generalized in Gansu, Ningxia, Liaoning and Zhejiang.

Mutation Breeding of Lactobacillus and Its Application in Yoghurt

With the gradual improvement of the quality of people’s life, the disorder of lipid metabolism caused by high-fat diet has become the main reason that affects the health of our people. Hyperlipidemia, hypertension and hyperglycemia have the effect of causing a large number of serious complications, and are also the main factors of cardiovascular disease. Lactic acid bacteria can avoid hyperlipidemia by inhibiting the excessive growth of harmful intestinal bacteria, maintaining the balance of intestinal microecology, absorbing intestinal cholesterol and regulating lipid metabolism. Therefore, this paper focused on the mutation and breeding of Lactobacillus, and analyzed its application in yoghurt, aiming to provide reference for relevant researchers.

Mutation breeding of high 4-androstene-3,17-dione-producing Mycobacterium neoaurum ZADF-4 by atmospheric and room temperature plasma treatment

Steroid medication is used extensively in clinical applications and comprises a large and vital part of the pharmaceutical industry. However, the difficulty of separating 4-androstene-3,17-dione （AD） from 1,4-androstadiene- 3,17-dione （ADD） restricts the application of the microbial transformation of phytosterols in the industry. A novel at- mospheric and room temperature plasma （ARTP） treatment, which employs helium as the working gas, was used to generate Mycobacterium neoaurum mutants producing large amounts of AD. After treatment of cultures with ARTP, four mutants were selected using a novel screening method with a color assay. Among the mutants, M. neoaurum ZADF-4 was considered the best candidate for industrial application. When the fermentation medium contained 15 g/L phytosterols and was cultivated on a rotary shaker at 160 r/min at 30 ~C for 7 d, （6.28＋0.11） g/L of AD and （0.82＋0.05） g/L of ADD were produced by the ZADF-4 mutant, compared with （4.83＋0.13） g/L of AD and （2.34＋0.06） g/L of ADD by the original strain, Iv~. neoaururn ZAD. Compared with ZAD, the molar yield of AD increased from 48.3% to 60.3% in the ZADF-4 mutant. This result indicates that ZADF-4 may have potential for industrial production of AD.

Effects of Space Radiation Mutation on Germination and Growth of Sugarcane Hybrid Seeds

[Objectives] This study was conducted to investigate the mutagenic effects of space radiation mutagenesis on sugarcane hybrid seeds. [Methods] Sugarcane hybrid spikes were subjected to space radiation mutagenesis treatment to identify the effects on the germination, seedling growth and plant growth and development of sugarcane hybrid seeds. [Results] The space radiation treatment had a great impact on the germination and growth of sugarcane hybrid seeds, especially on the germination of sugarcane seeds. The germination number per gram of seeds increased significantly, and the survival rate of seedlings increased significantly. The effect on the growth status was relatively small. The average number of tillers decreased slightly, the percentage of available stems increased, and the plants became higher, which resulted in a greater effect on sugarcane yield. Sugarcane sucrose was increased. The seed germination and late growth status indicated that space radiation promoted the germination and growth of sugarcane hybrid seeds. [Conclusions] This study provides a basis for the space radiation mutagenesis breeding of sugarcane hybrid seeds and the promotion of sugarcane breeding process.

Breeding of High-Yield Salinomycin-Producing Streptomyces albus Strains by Low Energy N^+ Ion Beam Irradiation

[Objective] This study aimed to explore the mutagenesis effects of N＋ ion beam implantation on Streptomyces a/bus and obtain high-yield salinomycin- producing mutant strain. [ Method ] Streptomyces a/bus strain S-11-04 was mutated with different doses of N ＋ implantation. The effects of low energy N ＊ implantation on the survival rate, colony morphology and salinomycin-producing ability were investigated. [ Result] The results showed that low energy N ＋ implantation can efficiently improve the positive mutation rate of Streptomyces albus; 13 mutant strains with high yield of salinomycin were isolated; to be specific, mutant strain N3- 6 has relatively good genetic stability with four continuous generations, and the titres of salinomycin were increased by 41% in the shake-flask culture and 20.5% in mass production compared with the control. [ Conclusion ] N ＋ ion beam irradiation is an effective method to obtain high-yield salinomycin-producing Streptomy- ces albus strain.

Screening of flocculant-producing strains by NTG mutagenesis

Screening of new microorganism being able to produce efficiently flocculants was carried out. A new model for screening efficient flocculant-producing strains was designed and tested. The results showed that this model for screening efficient flocculant-producing strains is very reliable and can greatly shorten the screening period. 13 flocculant-producing strains were isolated from activated sludge by conventional method. A strain, designated as HHE6, produced the bioflocculant with the turbidity removal 98% for kaolin suspension. Six of 13 strains selected as the original strains were treated with NTG as mutagen, and five mutant strains(HHE-P7, HHE-A8, HHE-P21, HHE-P24, HHE-A26) with high flocculation efficiency was obtained by selection, which exhibited the flocculation rate for kaolin suspension above 90%. Strains HHE6, HHE-P7, and HHE-P24 were classified as Penicillium purpurogenum, HHE-P21 as Penicillium cyclopium, HHE-A26 as Aspergillus versicolor and HHE-A8 as Aspergillus fumigatus, and it is hitherto unreported for biofloccutant-producing strains of Penicillium. The growth of the six strains(HHE6, HHE-P7, HHE-A8, HHE-P21, HHE-P24, HHE-A26) had similar curves, i.e. firstly increasing rapidly, keeping relatively constant then and finally decreasing gradually with cultivation time. The production of bioflocculants by strains showed the similar pattern to strain growth.

A Comparative Study on Mutagenic Effects of Space Flight and Irradiation of γ-rays on Rice

The experiment was conducted to study the mutagenic effects of space environment on seedling growth in M1 generation and plant height and heading date in M2 generation in rice. Two types of lines of growth promotion （GP） and growth suppression （GS） were selected from the recombinant inbred lines （RILs） derived from a cross between a sensitive japonica Lemont and a nonsensitive indica Teqing to compare the mutation frequency and mutagenic efficiency for plant height and heading date in the M2 generation. Space environment resulted in 34.9% higher seedling height （SH） in the GP group than in the control, and 39.1% lower in the GS group than in the control, and there was no difference in seed fertility （SF） between the two groups. In M2, mutants of plant height and heading date can be induced by space treatment in both the two groups with lower mutation frequency and mutagenic efficiency in the GP group than in the GS group. There were no significant differences in the physiological damages in M1 between the two groups after γ-rays irradiation treatment. Mutation frequency and mutagenic efficiency of heading date in M2 were higher in the GS group than in the GP group, and the opposite was true for mutagenic efficiency of plant height although the mutation frequency varied between the two groups. The mutation frequencies of plant height and heading date induced by space environment were obviously lower than those by γ-rays irradiation, but the mutagenic efficiency was the opposite for most of the traits. For the GP and GS of seedlings induced by space environment, the GS had higher mutation frequency and mutagenic efficiency for plant height and heading date than the GP in M2.

A Mutant of Bacillus Subtilis with High-Producing Surfactin by Ion Beam Implantation

In order to generate a mutant of Bacillus subtilis with enhanced surface activity through low energy nitrogen ion beam implantation, the effects of energy and dose of ions implanted were studied. The morphological changes in the bacteria were observed by scanning electron microscope （SEM）. The optimum condition of ions implantation, 20 keV of energy and 2.6 × 10^15N^＋/cm^2 in dose, was determined. A mutant, B.s-E-8 was obtained, whose surface activity of 50-fold and 100-fold diluted cell-free Landy medium was as 5.6-fold and 17.4-fold as the wild strain. The microbial growth and biosurfactant production of both the mutant and the wild strain were compared. After purified by ultrafiltration and SOURCE 15PHE, the biosurfactant was determined to be a complex of surfactin family through analysis of electrospray ionization mass spectrum （ESI/MS） and there was an interesting finding that after the ion beam implantation the intensities of the components were different from the wild type strain.

Screening of Bioflocculant-Producing Strain by Ion Implantation and Flocculating Characteristics of Bioflocculants

A bioflocculant-producing mutator strain, NIM-192, was screened out through nitrogen ion implanting into F J-7 strain. The results showed that NIM-192 had good genetic stability and high flocculating activity, and the flocculating rate increased by 34.26% than that of the original. Sucrose, complex nitrogen source contained yeast extract, urea and pH 7.0～ 9.0 were chosen as the best carbon source, nitrogen source and initial solution pH for bioflocculant production, respectively. The bioflocculant kept high and stable flocculating activity at alkalinous reaction mixture with a pH beyond 7.0, while the flocculating activity was remarkably reduced when the reaction pH was lower than 7.0. Addition of many cations could obviously increase the flocculating rate, among which Ca^2＋ demonstrated the best effect. The bioflocculant had very strong acid-base stability and thermo-stability.The flocculating rate kept over 86% when pH of the bioflocculant was in a range of 3.0 ～ 12.0, and the change of flocculating activity was not great when heated at 100℃ for 60 rain.

Frequency and type of inheritable mutations induced by γ rays in rice as revealed by whole genome sequencing

Mutation breeding is based on the induction of genetic variations; hence knowledge of the frequency and type of induced mutations is of paramount importance for the design and implementation of a mutation breeding program. Although γ ray irradiation has been widely used since the 1960 s in the breeding of about 200 economically important plant species, molecular elucidation of its genetic effects has so far been achieved largely by analysis of target genes or genomic regions. In the present study, the whole genomes of six γ-irradiated M2 rice plants were sequenced; a total of 144–188 million high-quality（Q〉20） reads were generated for each M2 plant, resulting in genome coverage of 45 times for each plant. Single base substitution（SBS） and short insertion/deletion（Indel） mutations were detected at the average frequency of 7.5×10^-6～9.8×10^-6 in the six M2 rice plants（SBS being about 4 times more frequent than Indels）. Structural and copy number variations, though less frequent than SBS and Indel, were also identified and validated. The mutations were scattered in all genomic regions across 12 rice chromosomes without apparent hotspots. The present study is the first genome-wide single-nucleotide resolution study on the feature and frequency of γ irradiation-induced mutations in a seed propagated crop; the findings are of practical importance for mutation breeding of rice and other crop species.

Morphological and biochemical responses of Oryza sativa L.(cultivar MR219) to ion beam irradiation

Objective: Heavy ion beam, which has emerged as a new mutagen in the mutation breeding of crops and ornamental plants, is expected to result in the induction of novel mutations. This study investigates the morphological and biochemical responses of Oryza sativa toward different doses of carbon ion beam irradiation. Methods: In this study, the dry seeds of O. sativa were irradiated at 0, 20, 40, 60, 80, 100, and 120 Gy, followed by in-vitro germination under controlled conditions. Morphological and biochemical studies were conducted to investigate the morphological and physiological responses of O. sativa towards ion beam irradiation. Results: The study demonstrated that low doses(10 Gy) of ion beam have a stimulating effect on the height, root length, and fresh weight of the plantlets but not on the number of leaves. Meanwhile, doses higher than 10 Gy caused reductions in all the morphological parameters studied as compared to the control samples. The highest total soluble protein content [(2.11±0.47) mg/g FW] was observed in plantlets irradiated at 20 Gy. All irradiated plantlets were found to have 0.85% to 58.32% higher specific activity of peroxidase as compared to the control samples. The present study also revealed that low doses of ion beam(10 and 20 Gy) had negligible effect on the total chlorophyll content of O. sativa plantlets while 40 Gy had a stimulating effect on the chlorophyll content. Plantlets irradiated between 40 to 120 Gy were shown to be 0.38% to 9.98% higher in total soluble nitrogen content which, however, was not significantly different from the control samples. Conclusions: Carbon ion beam irradiation administered at low to moderate doses of 10 to 40 Gy may induce O. sativa mutants with superior characteristics.

Nuclear Technique and Agriculture in China

Nuclear technique is a powerful scientific tool in agricultural research, an area with fruitful achievements in China. Application of nuclear technique in agriculture (Nuclear Agricultural Sciences) based on the development of related science and technology is a high-tech area, and also a significant aspect of non-electrical power application of nuclear technique. As an important component of agricultural science and technology, Nuclear technique application in agricultural field has achieved a lot and made remarkable contributions to the economic, social and ecological development of China. The current paper reviews the achievements, and presents the situation of the application of nuclear technique in the Chinese a-griculture briefly. The author strongly suggests that Chinese government should pay more attention to the study on the application of nuclear technique in agriculture, in order to promote its development and contribute more to the Chinese society and agriculture.