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The flowering process in plants proceeds through the induction of an inflorescence meristem triggered by several pathways. Many of the genes associated with these pathways encode transcription factors of the MADS domain family. The MADS-domain transcription factor APETALA1 (AP1) is a key regulator of flower development. The first step to understand the molecular mechanisms under the function of each gene in a plant is identification, sequencing and phylogeny analysis of that gene. For this purpose, total RNA was isolated from flower bud of garden cress (Lepidium sativum L.) and was used for cDNA synthesis. The specific primers were designed based on nucleotide sequence alignment of AP1 homologus genes from plants of the same family Brassicaceae and were used in RT-PCR. After observing its electrophoretic pattern and ensuring the quality of PCR product, the amplicon was sent for sequencing. After receiving the results of sequencing, the sequence examined with BLAST, MUSCLE, Gene Runner and MEGA6 softwares. The results indicated amplification of 787 nucleotides fragment that named LsAP1 and was recorded by accession number KP070728 in NCBI database. The studies show high similarity and overlapping of gene bank sequences with LsAP1 illative protein. According to these results, LsAP1 may play a similar role as AP1 in flower induction and could act as a flower meristem identity gene in Lepidium sativum L.

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The environmental conditions which the parent plant has undergone during seed development can affect many properties of the seeds such as degree of dormancy, weight and the amount of their compounds. In this study, mature pistachio seeds of Ahmadaghaei cultivar, collected from the two cities of Rafsanjan and Shahrbabak located in Kerman Province (Iran), were compared. It was found that the seeds collected from Shahrbabak being a cooler and wetter region had a longer dormancy, although the water content of the two seed series were similar. Dehydrin proteins generally play a role in protecting plant cells against dehydration stress. Dehydrin contents of the cotyledons and embryonic axes of the two seed series were compared by western blot method using an antibody against the conserved K segment in dehydrin proteins. It was found that the cotyledons had five dehydrin versions with molecular weights of 23, 25, 32, 39 and 48 kDa, the expression of which not being influenced by environmental factors. It was found that the embryonic axes had seven other versions of dehydrin with weights of 17, 19, 20, 28, 67, 77 and 98 kDa in addition to those five versions. This shows higher protection of embryonic axes compared with the cotyledons. The 25 and 28 kDa versions had higher expression levels in embryonic axes of Shahrbabak seeds, while the 39 kDa version had a higher expression level in embryonic axes of Rafsanjan seeds.