Manipulation of stress related transcription factors to improve plant stress tolerance is a major goal of current biotechnology researches. MYC2 gene encodes a key stress-related transcription factor involved in Jasmonate (JA) and abscisic acid (ABA) signaling pathways in Arabidopsis. Brassica napus, as a globally important oilseed crop, is a close relative of Arabidopsis.  In the present study...

Canada is the world’s largest producer of canola and the trend of production is ever increasing with an annual growth rate of 9.38% according to FAOSTAT [1]. In 2017, canola acreage surpassed wheat in Saskatchewan, the highest producer of both crops in Canada. Country-wide, the total farming area of canola increased by 9.9% to 22.4 million acres while wheat area saw a slight decline to 23.3 mil...

Introduction Assessment of the mating system of a crop is particularly important for the design of adequate breeding and genetic conservation programs. Genetic inbreeding and heterosis, important factors that affect the production of the crop, are related to the mating system. Brassica napus L. includes economically important crops, such as oilseed rape, rutabaga and leaf rape. B. napus is cons...

Stable expression of a transgene may lead to increased fitness for wild plants after acquiring the transgene via crop-weed hybridization. Here, we investigate the stability of Bt toxin content in wild Brassica rapa acquiring the Bt gene from Bt Brassica napus. The Bt toxin content in nine Bt-expressing B. napus lines was 0.80-1.70 micro g/g leaf tissue throughout the growing season. These nine ...

Salinity stress is one of typical abiotic stresses that seriously limit crop production. In this study, a genetic linkage map based on 532 molecular markers covering 1341.1 cM was constructed to identify the loci associated with salt tolerance in Brassica napus. Up to 45 quantitative trait loci (QTLs) for 10 indicators were identified in the F2:3 populations. These QTLs can account for 4.80-51....

Seven blackleg resistance (R) genes (Rlm1, Rlm2, Rlm3, Rlm4, LepR1, LepR2 & LepR3) were each introgressed into a common susceptible B. napus doubled-haploid (DH) line through reciprocal back-crossing, producing single-R gene introgression lines (ILs) for use in the pathological and molecular study of Brassica-Leptosphaeria interactions. The genomic positions of the R genes were defined through ...

Myrosinases are glycoproteins composed by several minor protein subunits that occur as mixtures of isoenzymes. Myrosinases catalyse the hydrolysis of glucosinolates, producing a series of degradation products with biological activity. In the experiments presented in this paper, myrosinases were purified from seeds of S. alba, B. napus and two cultivars of R. sativus with different resistance to...

It is evident from previous reports that 5-aminolevulinic acid (ALA), like other known plant growth regulators, is effective in countering the injurious effects of heavy metal-stress in oilseed rape (Brassica napus L.). The present study was carried out to explore the capability of ALA to improve cadmium (Cd2+) tolerance in B. napus through physiological, molecular, and proteomic analytical app...

Transgenic Brassica napus harboring the synthetic chitinase (NiC) gene exhibits broad-spectrum antifungal resistance. As the rhizosphere microorganisms play an important role in element cycling and nutrient transformation, therefore, biosafety assessment of NiC containing transgenic plants on soil ecosystem is a regulatory requirement. The current study is designed to evaluate the impact of NiC...