Laura Bassolino

Council for Agricultural Research and Agricultural Economy Analysis | CREA · Research Centre for Cereal and Industrial Crops (CREA-CI) Bologna

In the framework of a Collaboration Agreement between CREA and ARSIAL, a morpho-phenological, chemical, and genetic characterization of maize populations native to the Lazio region was carried out. During 2022 and 2023, a set of 50 accessions, belonging both to ARSIAL and CREA maize collections, were multiplied in Bergamo. Morpho-phenological descr...

Main conclusion After the most comprehensive analysis of the phenolic composition in Cannabis reported to date, a total of 211 compounds were identified, phenolic profiles were able to discriminate cannabis varieties and a complex regulatory network for phenolics accumulation in Cannabis chemovars was highlighted. Abstract Female inflorescences of...

Silybum marianum (L.) Gaertn. is a multipurpose crop native to the Mediterranean and middle east regions and mainly known for the hepatoprotective properties of fruit-derived silymarin. Despite growing interest in milk thistle as a versatile crop with medicinal value, its potential in agroindustry is hindered by incomplete domestication and limited...

Environmental cues elicit anthocyanin synthesis in plant vegetative and reproductive tissues. Their accumulation in different organs accounts for their diverse biological functions, mainly related to their antioxidant properties, and it depends on a temporally and spatially regulated mechanism controlled by the action of a well-known multi-transcri...

HIGHLIGHTS •Two S. marianum chemotypes with considerably different silymarin composition •S. marianum chemotypes arise from actively regulated metabolic processes •Chemotype differentiation is regulated by a monogenic hereditable factor •RNA-Seq was performed during silymarin deposition in the two chemotypes •Specific dirigent-like transcripts...

Eggplant (Solanum melongena L.), similar to many other crops, suffers from soil-borne diseases, including Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. melongenae (Fom), causing wilting and heavy yield loss. To date, the genetic factors underlying plant responses to Fom are not well known. We previously developed a Recombinant Inbred Lines (RILs) population using as a...

Silybum marianum (L.) Gaertn. has been recently valorised as oilseed crop for its productivity and for the chemical composition of its oil. However, a high oleic acid oil (HO) line, which would be useful for cooking but also for biodiesel production and other industrial applications, was not found in its natural germplasm. To address this issue, an...

Given the general beneficial effects of antioxidants-rich foods on human health and disease prevention, there is a continuous interest in plant secondary metabolites conferring attractive colors to fruits and grains and responsible, together with others, for nutraceutical properties. Cereals and Solanaceae are important components of the human diet...

Cannabis sativa L. is an annual herb cultivated since ancient times for different purposes. While in the past hemp inflorescences were considered crop residues, today they are employed for the extraction of their essential oil (EO), which has gained an increasing interest thanks to its several activities in different fields of application. The aim...

Cannabis sativa L. has been long cultivated for its narcotic potential due to the accumulation of tetrahydrocannabinolic acid (THCA) in female inflorescences, but nowadays its production for fiber, seeds, edible oil and bioactive compounds has spread throughout the world. However, some hemp varieties still accumulate traces of residual THCA close t...

Eggplant berries are rich in anthocyanins like delphinidin-3-rutinoside (D3R) and nasunin (NAS), which are accumulated at high amounts in the peel. NAS is derived by D3R through acylation and glycosylation steps. The presence of D3R or NAS is usually associated with black-purple or lilac fruit coloration of the most cultivated varieties, respective...

Cannabis sativa L. is an annual species cultivated since antiquity for different purposes. While, in the past, hemp inflorescences were considered crop residues, at present, they are regarded as valuable raw materials with different applications, among which extraction of the essential oil (EO) has gained increasing interest in many fields. The aim...

Defatted seed meals of oleaginous Brassicaceae, such as Eruca sativa, and potato peel are excellent plant matrices to recover potentially useful biomolecules from industrial processes in a circular strategy perspective aiming at crop protection. These biomolecules, mainly glycoalkaloids and phenols for potato and glucosinolates for Brassicaceae, ha...

Seed priming can circumvent poor germination rate and uniformity, frequently reported in eggplant (Solanum melongena L.) and its crop wild relatives (CWRs). However, there is still a gap of knowledge on how these treatments impact the pre-germinative metabolism in a genotype- and/or species-dependent manner. The CWR Solanum villosum Miller (hairy n...

Plant secondary metabolic pathways are finely regulated by the activity of transcription factors, among which members of the bHLH and MYB subfamilies play a main role. Cannabis sativa L. is a unique officinal plant species with over 600 synthesized phytochemicals having diverse scale-up industrial and pharmaceutical usage. Despite comprehensive kno...

Background: In viticulture, rootstock genotype plays a critical role to improve scion physiology, berry quality and to adapt grapevine (Vitis vinifera L.) to different environmental conditions. This study aimed at investigating the effect of two different rootstocks (1103 Paulsen - P - and Mgt 101-14 - M) in comparison with not grafted plants - NG...

Seed priming, a pre-sowing technique that enhances the antioxidant/DNA repair activities during the pre-germinative metabolism, still retains empirical features. We explore for the first time the molecular dynamics of pre-germinative metabolism in primed eggplant (Solanum melongena L.) seeds in order to identify hallmarks (expression patterns of an...

Here we focus on the highly conserved MYB-bHLH-WD repeat (MBW) transcriptional complex model in eggplant, which is pivotal in the transcriptional regulation of the anthocyanin biosynthetic pathway. Through a genome-wide approach performed on the recently released Eggplant Genome (cv. 67/3) previously identified, and reconfirmed by us, members belon...

Eggplant (Solanum melongena L.) yield is highly sensitive to N fertilization, the excessive use of which is responsible for environmental and human health damage. Lowering N input together with the selection of improved Nitrogen‐Use‐Efficiency (NUE) genotypes, more able to uptake, utilize, and remobilize N available in soils, can be challenging to...

Fruit shape and colour as well as plant architecture and resistance to diseases are main target traits in eggplant breeding programs. Solanum tomentosum L. is a wild relative of eggplant representing a valuable source for key breeding traits, like resistances to pathogens, plant/fruit features, and fruit biochemical composition. Its short internode...

With approximately 450 species, spiny Solanum species constitute the largest monophyletic group in the Solanaceae family, but a high-quality genome assembly from this group is presently missing. We obtained a chromosome-anchored genome assembly of eggplant (Solanum melongena), containing 34,916 genes, confirming that the diploid gene number in the...

Single primer enrichment technology (SPET) is a new, robust, and customizable solution for targeted genotyping. Unlike genotyping by sequencing (GBS), and like DNA chips, SPET is a targeted genotyping technology, relying on the sequencing of a region flanking a primer. Its reliance on single primers, rather than on primer pairs, greatly simplifies...

Fusarium spp. and Verticillium spp. are widespread soil pathogens responsible for vascular wilts causing heavy yield losses in eggplant (Solanum melongena) as well as in many other crops. Here we report on the identification of QTLs affecting the resistance to Fusarium and Verticillium in an F2 intraspecific population of 156 individuals bred from...

Endogenous housekeeping genes are traditionally employed to normalize the expression of target genes in RT-qPCR studies. Assuming that a perfect housekeeping suitable for every condition does not exist, expression stability of the chosen reference gene should be evaluated at every new experiment. The housekeeping selection process reveals furthermo...

Rosmarinic acid (RA) is a caffeic acid ester widely used by pharmaceutical and food industry. Its presence in several medicinal plant species and herb has been correlated with their biological activities and health beneficial effects. RA is widely used as additive to preserve foods, and because the chemical synthesis, even possible, remains time co...

Phenylpropanoids are major secondary metabolites in eggplant (Solanum melongena) fruits. Chlorogenic acid (CGA) accounts for 70 to 90% of total phenolics in flesh tissues, while anthocyanins are mainly present in the fruit skin. As a contribution to the understanding of the peculiar accumulation of these health-promoting metabolites in eggplant, we...

Eggplant is susceptible to fungal wilts caused by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. melongenae and Verticillium dahliae. Wild and allied relatives represent a good source of resistance and ILs have been obtained through introgression of the Rfo-sa1 locus conferring resistance to Fusarium oxysporum from S. aethiopicum into cultivated eggplant. In this work,...

Somatic embryogenesis is, for the main floricultural crops, a promising system for commercial scale-up, providing cloned material to be traded as seedlings. Somatic embryos, having the contemporary presence of root apical meristem and shoot apical meristem, can be readily acclimatized. For Lisianthus it is possible to induce embryogenic callus from...

Plant survival is greatly impaired when oxygen levels are limiting, such as during flooding or when anatomical constraints limit oxygen diffusion. Oxygen sensing in Arabidopsis thaliana is mediated by Ethylene Responsive Factor (ERF)-VII transcription factors, which control a core set of hypoxia- and anoxia-responsive genes responsible for metaboli...

Anthocyanins are water-soluble polyphenolic compounds with a high nutraceutical value. Despite the fact that cultivated tomato varieties do not accumulate anthocyanins in the fruit, the biosynthetic pathway can be activated in the vegetative organs by several environmental stimuli. Little is known about the molecular mechanisms regulating anthocyan...

In this study, we developed tissue culture protocol of Salvia dolomitica, a particularly fragrant sage and we evaluated the yield and the profile of essential oil (EO) produced from plants grown in vivo compared to in vitro plant material cultured in two light intensity growth conditions. Plant extracts secreted from glandular trichomes are, in Lam...

Shelf life is one of the most important traits for the tomato ( Solanum lycopersicum ) industry. Two key factors, post‐harvest over‐ripening and susceptibility to post‐harvest pathogen infection, determine tomato shelf life. Anthocyanins accumulate in the skin of Aft/Aft atv/atv tomatoes, the result of introgressing alleles affecting anthocyanin bi...

Anthocyanins are high value plant antioxidants, which are not present in the fruits of the cultivated tomato. However, both the dominant gene Anthocyanin fruit (Aft) and the recessive gene atroviolacea (atv), when introgressed into the domesticated tomato from two different wild Solanum species, stimulate a limited anthocyanin pigmentation. Surpris...