Sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.), belonging to the family „Asteraceae‟ is a diploid species (2n = 2x = 34). Sunflower is an important oilseed crop and is the preferred source of oil for domestic consumption and cooking worldwide (Hu et al., 2010). In the oilseed scenario, sunflower competes with other three major oilseeds, i.e. soyabean, groundnut and rapeseed mustard at global level. Sunflower...

This paper reports the Ku band (1318GHz) response of thick film equilateral triangle microstrip patch antenna to moisture laden sunflower (Helianthus Annuus) seeds using overlay technique. From the frequency response the moisture dependent microwave permittivity has been reported. The thick film patch antenna is sensitive even to ~ 4.25% moisture content in the overlay material. The actual mois...

Allergy is a type of abnormal immune reactions, which is triggered by environmental antigens or allergens and mediated by IgE antibodies. Now-a-days mass spectrometry is the method of choice for allergen identification based on homology searching. Here, we provide the mass spectrometry dataset associated with our previously published research article on identification of sunflower pollen allerg...

Phytochelatins are the principal heavy metal-detoxifying components in plants. To investigate phytochelatin (PHC) production and the importance of these compounds for heavy metal tolerance, sunflower (Helianthus annuus) was exposed to cadmium. The leaves and roots of sunflower plants cultivated in the presence of 15, 25 and 50 M Cd(NO3)2 for 3 and 9 days showed increased tolerance to cadmium an...

We investigated the extent of Sb uptake by maize (Zea mays) and sunflower (Helianthus annuus) from nutrient solutions containing concentrations from 3 to 24 mg/L of potassium antimonate, with the aim of determining the potential of Sb to enter the food chain. The maximum shoot Sb concentrations in Z. mays and H. annuus were 41 mg/kg and 77 mg/kg dry weight, respectively. There was no significan...

Hybridization and abiotic stress are natural agents hypothesized to influence activation and proliferation of transposable elements in wild populations. In this report, we examine the effects of these agents on expression dynamics of both quiescent and transcriptionally active sublineages of long terminal repeat (LTR) retrotransposons in wild sunflower species with a notable history of transpos...

As a potential phytoremediation system for phytoextraction of chromium (Cr), we evaluated the influence of the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus Glomus intraradices on leaf tissue elemental composition, growth and gas exchange of sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.). Sunflower seedlings were either inoculated with mycorrhizal fungi (AM) or non-inoculated (Non-AM) and then exposed to two Cr species: {12...

Sunflower plant (Helianthus annuus) is a miraculous oil seed crop which is cultivated globally for its seeds. Sunflower seeds, a nutrient dense food has been found to have a potential role in chronic inflammatory conditions, bacterial and fungal infections, cardiovascular diseases, skin diseases and even cancers. These benefits of sunflower seeds are attributed to the presence of phytosterols, ...

Traditional plant breeding is often limited by the genetic diversity within a species. The use of biotechnology allows introducing into a plant, specific traits that come from the same or another plant species. In this paper, we focus on tissue culture of sunflower (Helianthus annuus L., Asteraceae), particularly related to rooting transgenic sunflower plantlets. Sunflower is notoriously recalc...

Lentz et al. (1) cite linguistic evidence supporting their hypothesis that Helianthus annuus was domesticated in Mesoamerica in pre-Columbian times. This consists, in part, of a list of names for sunflower collected from speakers of 14 contemporary native languages. They conclude that the fact that terms for sunflower in 11 of these languages do not phonologically resemble Spanish words for sun...