| Wheat is the most essential food used by nearly 40% of the total population of the world. Yellow or stripe rust (produced by Puccinia striiformis), is a globally significant disease of wheat. Stripe rust was primarily considered a disease of cooler climate (2°C - 15°C), upper altitudes and northern latitudes, but current epidemics of the disease have confronted this supposition because fresh strains have greater adaptation to higher temperatures and countries closer to the equator. Crop damages can reach 50 - 100%, due to infected plants and shriveled grain. These problems can be overcome by knowledge about the disease, identifying resistance lines and subsequently develop resistant varieties with an aim to shorten the disease cycle. One of the quickest ways in this direction is the designing molecular markers for non-race-specific resistance genes. Use of molecular markers is efficient tool for screening diversity of rust genes in wheat germplasm and can facilitate the integration of multiple genes into wheat by pyramiding and transformation. This review discusses information regarding rust disease and resistance in wheat to tackle the disease through resistance breeding.

Background: Type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM2) is a chronic and sometimes fatal condition which affects people all over the world. Nanotherapeutics have shown tremendous potential to combat chronic diseases—including DM2—as they enhance the overall impact of drugs on biological systems. Greenly synthesized silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) from Catharanthus roseus methanolic extract (C. AgNPs) were examined primarily for their cytotoxic and antidiabetic effects. Methods: Characterization of C. AgNPs was performed by UV–vis spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and atomic force microscopy (AFM). The C. AgNPs were trialed on Vero cell line and afterwards on an animal model (rats). Results: The C. AgNPs showed standard structural and functional characterization as revealed by FTIR and XRD analyses. The zetapotential analysis indicated stability while EDX analysis confirmed the formation of composite capping with Ag metal. The cytotoxic effect (IC50) of C. AgNPs on Vero cell lines was found to be 568 g/mL. The animal model analyses further revealed a significant difference in water intake, food intake, body weight, urine volume, and urine sugar of tested rats after treatment with aqueous extract of C. AgNPs. Moreover, five groups of rats including control and diabetic groups (NC1, PC2, DG1, DG2, and DG3) were investigated for their blood glucose and glycemic control analysis. Conclusions: The C. AgNPs exhibited positive potential on the Vero cell line as well as on experimental rats. The lipid profile in all the diabetic groups (DG1-3) were significantly increased compared with both of the control groups (p < 0.05). The present study revealed the significance of C. AgNPs in nanotherapeutics.

Banana is one of the major cash and fruit crops of Pakistan. The lack of information concerning genetic diversity and purity within locally cultivated banana varieties is a major bottleneck in improving its genetics. Due to the existence of a narrow genetic background, it’s quite important to find genomic variations in banana varieties. DNA marker-based techniques have been used to effectively characterize banana varieties. In the current study, Inter Simple Sequence Repeat (ISSR) markers were used to characterize banana cultivars and to assess the genetic diversity of 14 local banana varieties grown in Pakistan. Out of the 45 primers used, 40 primers revealed reproducible results and produced 121 polymorphic bands, which contributed a ratio of 47.87 polymorphism. The ISSR UBC-835 and UBC-834 possessed the highest PIC ranged between (86–88%) in banana varieties, while the lowest PIC (46%) was detected in the case of UBC−857 marker with (100–1500 bp) PCR product size. Pairwise Jaccard’s similarity coefficient values were also calculated, and these were ranged from 0.56–0.88. Multivariate analysis divided 14 banana varieties into two distinct groups—A and B respectively—and furthermore into subgroups, clusters, and sub−clusters. Our results indicated that at the molecular level, the banana varieties in group—A were found to be 66% similar whereas in group B were 88% similar. Nei’s genetic diversity, PCA analysis, and a minimum spanning tree depicted Fenjiao, Dajiao, and NIGAB-2 as the most diverse members as compared to all other varieties of the three populations. Out of 14 varieties used, 11 varieties were uniquely identified by 54 polymorphic ISSR bands of different sizes. Some varieties like NIGAB-2 and NIGAB-3 were uniquely identified only with one band while others were tagged by multiple unique bands. In future, this study will be utilized to establish a molecular-based protocol for the identification of banana varieties.

The study was designed to evaluate the genetic background of indigenous germplasm by using simple sequence repeats (SSRs) gene markers for the selection of elite lines with multiple gene combinations that can be used in breeding programs for wheat improvement against rust disease. The principal component analysis (PCA) was constructed to estimate the genetic difference between the accessions and revealed an 85.3% variation. A high level of association was found between markers XWMC170 /XGWM608, XGWM44a/XGWM44b, XGDM111a/XGWM129, XWMC765a/XWMC765b, and GWM148a/XWMC765b while low level of correlation was observed between the markers CSLV34b and CSLV34a i.e -0.688 followed by GWM148a and XGWM129 (-0.633). Cluster analysis revealed three main groups but group A was totally different from B and C with the genetic distance of 18.5 revealing that these accessions were having totally different genetic bases and are more diversified than the others. A total of 40 reported genetic markers (SSRs) were utilized to amplify the required bands for identifying the genes and their genetic distance in terms of variations between the wheat germplasm. The highest amplification was revealed by XGDM19 (130 bp), WMC773 (298 bp), XWMC331a (210 bp), BARC114a (105 bp), barc86a (200 bp), and XBARC4a (90 bp) i.e. 50, 48, 47, 46, 45, and 42 respectively. The study was useful as disease-related SSRs markers were used for general diversity, making the single SSRs marker used for multiple purposes including disease resistance, genetic diversity, and mineral or ion identification. It will ultimately help in saving the cost, time, and effort rather than using individual/or specific markers for evaluating the genetic distance or base for the diversity analysis.