Amir Naeemi; Gholamreza Pezeshki Rad; Behzad Ghareyazie
Volume 7, Issue 2 , January 2010
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate the attitudes of biotechnology experts in university centers of Tehran Province towards the application of transgenic plants. The study had a descriptive-correlation design and it was carried out through a survey method. The target population consisted of ...
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The purpose of this study was to investigate the attitudes of biotechnology experts in university centers of Tehran Province towards the application of transgenic plants. The study had a descriptive-correlation design and it was carried out through a survey method. The target population consisted of 75 biotechnology experts at university centers of Tehran Province. Using the Kerjcie and Morgan sample size table and a stratified randomized sampling method, 63 experts were chosen as the sample; the research instrument was questionnaire. Face and content validity of the questionnaire was established by using a panel of agricultural extension and education and biotechnology experts. A pilot test was conducted to determine the reliability of the questionnaire. The Cronbach alpha coefficient was estimated at between 0.83 and 0.93 by using SPSS software version 16. Descriptive findings indicated that 44.5% of experts’ attitudes towards using transgenic plants were either ‘positive’ or ‘relatively positive’ and other experts’ attitudes were either ‘negative’ or ‘relatively negative’. Three aspects of transgenic plants that had medium importance were: ecological (mean: 3.40), socio-economic (mean: 3.34) and health-hygiene (mean: 3.12), respectively. The effective educational and extension factor in using transgenic plants was the mass media (mean: 4.26). Also, an important solution for application and development of transgenic plants was the establishment of a research center and incubator. Mann Whitney U test findings showed a statistical significant difference at a 1% level between male and female attitudes towards using transgenic plants. Spearman correlation coefficients showed a statistically significant and positive correlation between the ecological, socio-economic and health-hygiene aspects of transgenic plants with experts’ attitudes towards using these plants. Multivariate regression analysis indicated that the ecological and health-hygiene aspects determined 43.7% of the variations in the experts’ attitudes.
Masoud Sheidai; Nastaran Heydari
Volume 6, Issue 4 , July 2009
Abstract
Sheath blight disease, caused by Rhizoctonia solani, is a major fungal disease of rice, occurring mostly in Asian rice. The present study was performed to identify the chitinase polymorphism in 19 Iranian rice cultivars by using RFLP-PBR, with Rsa I, Taq I, Sac I and Ava I restriction enzymes. Digestion ...
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Sheath blight disease, caused by Rhizoctonia solani, is a major fungal disease of rice, occurring mostly in Asian rice. The present study was performed to identify the chitinase polymorphism in 19 Iranian rice cultivars by using RFLP-PBR, with Rsa I, Taq I, Sac I and Ava I restriction enzymes. Digestion of the chitinase gene RICCH-3 by its specific digesting enzymes, i.e. RsaI and TaqI, produced a uniform banding pattern in all the rice cultivars studied. However RICCH-1 digestion showed banding pattern polymorphism in the two cultivars 1205 and 1206 and digestion of RICCH-2 showed banding pattern polymorphism in the cultivars 665 and 667. The cultivars studied showed no polymorphism for the sites of the AvaI and SacI enzymes. In total, 13 bands were obtained by the digesting action of RsaI and TaqI enzymes among 19 rice cultivars studied, 4 bands were common in all the cultivars while one unique band was observed in the cultivar 326. There were 4 other bands present in all other cultivars but missing in the cultivar 326, making this cultivar significantly different from the other rice cultivars studied. Data obtained suggested the possible occurrence of intra-geneic deletion in the RICCH-1 site and intra-genic duplication in RICCH-2 site. Grouping of the rice cultivars on the basis of the RFLP bands obtained did not correlate with their geographical regions of cultivation. This is the first report on chitinase polymorphism in Iranian rice cultivars.
