Sansevieria Thunb. species are traditionally known as succulent ornamental plants worldwide. They are also cultivated for medicinal, fodder, soil conservation and fiber uses, and for their capacity to reduce environmental pollution. Sansevieria sexual propagation is limited by the lack of viable seeds, and reproduction is largely made via vegetative propagation by suckers or cuttings. For these reasons, genetic improvement by conventional breeding is limited. To overcome this problem and to address the increasing demand from customers for novel Sansevieria varieties, many commercial companies regularly use in vitro propagation, as is the case in the breeding process of several ornamental plants. In this paper, for the first time, we report a procedure for in vitro somatic embryogenesis and plant regeneration starting from three flower explants for seven different Sansevieria genotypes. Regeneration was attempted using stigmas/styles, anther/filament, and ovary which were cultured on a Murashige and Skoog solidified medium under three different plant growth regulator combinations. A good regeneration rate was obtained with all genotypes used under all culture conditions tested from every explant type, with percentages ranging from 0 to 73.3%. “Genetic stability” assessment of regenerated plants in respect to their mother plants was verified through flow cytometry analysis showing a high degree of uniformity, with only S. parva exhibiting a different level of DNA fluorescence among in vitro regenerated plants. This is an interesting achievement in the aim to produce true-to-type plants and new variants with desirable characteristics, both of which are desired features in ornamentals improvement.

The strengthening effect of a mild temperature treatment on the antimicrobial efficacy of essential oils has been widely reported, often leading to an underestimation or a misinterpretation of the product’s microbial status. In the present study, both a traditional culture-based method and Flow Cytometry (FCM) were applied to monitor the individual or combined effect of Origanum vulgare essential oil (OEO) and mild heat treatment on the culturability and viability of Escherichia coli in a conventional culture medium and in a fruit juice challenge test. The results obtained in the culture medium showed bacterial inactivation with an increasing treatment temperature (55 °C, 60 °C, 65 °C), highlighting an overestimation of the dead population using the culture-based method; in fact, when the FCM method was applied, the prevalence of injured bacterial cells in a viable but non-culturable (VBNC) state was observed. When commercial fruit juice with a pH of 3.8 and buffered at pH 7.0 was inoculated with E. coli ATCC 25922, a bactericidal action of OEO and a higher efficiency of the mild heat at 65 °C for 5′ combined with OEO were found. Overall, the combination of mild heat and OEO treatment represents a promising antimicrobial alternative to improve the safety of fruit juice.

A bread wheat line (N11) and a disomic 2D(2R) substitution triticale line were crossed and backrossed four times. At each step electrophoretic selection for the seeds that possessed, simultaneously, the complete set of high molecular weight glutenin subunits of N11 and the two high molecular weight secalins of rye, present in the 2D(2R) line, was carried out. Molecular cytogenetic analyses of the BC₄F₈ generation revealed that the selection carried out produced a disomic addition line (2n = 44). The pair of additional chromosomes consisted of the long arm of chromosome 1R (1RL) from rye fused with the satellite body of the wheat chromosome 6B. Rheological analyses revealed that the dough obtained by the new addition line had higher quality characteristics when compared with the two parents. The role of the two additional high molecular weight secalins, present in the disomic addition line, in influencing improved dough characteristics is discussed.

Traditionally globe artichoke and leafy cardoon have been cultivated for use as vegetables but these crops are now finding multiple new roles in applications ranging from paper production to cheese preparation and biofuel use, with interest in their functional food potential. So far, their chromosome complements have been poorly investigated and a well-defined karyotype was not available. In this paper, a detailed karyo-morphological analysis and molecular cytogenetic studies were conducted on globe artichoke (Cynara cardunculus Linnaeus, 1753 var. scolymus Fiori, 1904) and leafy cardoon (Cynara cardunculus Linneaus, 1753 var. altilis De Candolle, 1838). Fluorescent In Situ Hybridization In Suspension (FISHIS) was applied to nuclei suspensions as a fast method for screening of labelling probes, before metaphase spread hybridization. Classic Fluorescent In Situ Hybridization (FISH) on slide, using repetitive telomeric and ribosomal sequences and Simple Sequence Repeats (SSRs) oligonucleotide as probes, identified homologous chromosome relationships and allowed development of molecular karyotypes for both varieties. The close phylogenetic relationship between globe artichoke and cardoon was supported by the very similar karyotypes but clear chromosomal structural variation was detected. In the light of the recent release of the globe artichoke genome sequencing, these results are relevant for future anchoring of the pseudomolecule sequence assemblies to specific chromosomes. In addition, the DNA content of the two crops has been determined by flow cytometry and a fast method for standard FISH on slide and methodological improvements for nuclei isolation are described.