This study aimed to investigate the effect of various sweeteners on the development of Maillard reaction products in wheat cookies. Cookies prepared using pure sugars (fructose, glucose, dextrose, sucrose), maltex, brown cane sugar, coconut sugar, xylitol, erythritol, maple syrup and agave syrup, acacia honey and meadow honey, apricot jam and pumpkin jam and stevia extract were baked at 180 °C for 7, 10 and 13 min. The levels of acrylamide and 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF), as well as color were monitored in these cookies. At 180 °C, acrylamide was detected at all baking times, reaching a final concentration of 592.1 μg/kg up to 2000.3 and 2063.7 μg/kg after 13 min of baking in cookies containing brown cane sugar, which comprises 99.19% sucrose, and coconut sugar i.e. pumpkin jam, respectively. The highest HMF accumulation was a consequence of sucrose replacement with acacia honey and meadow honey. In cookies with sugar alcohols and stevia, HMF was not detected.
Abstract 1. Most plant species are genetically differentiated among populations, often reflected by phenotypic trait variation that corresponds to local adaptation. Yet the strength of local adaptation and heritable contribution to phenotypic traits vary across traits, species, and environments. Additionally, climate change is rapidly altering environmental conditions, and the climate may shift faster than populations can adapt or track the change via dispersal, resulting in adaptive lags. However, it remains unclear how widespread such adaptive lags are across plant species. 2. We focused on Hordeum murinum , an annual ruderal grass widespread in Europe. We combined continental-scale in situ measurements of 2070 plants across 207 populations with common garden experiments across two contrasting climates and two soil types to disentangle heritable variation from phenotypic plasticity and assess potential adaptive lags under climate change. 3. We found that heritable variation was pronounced in developmental traits, particularly flowering time and plant height, while seed weight, reproductive investment and SLA showed intermediate heritable contribution, and flag leaf area and total biomass were primarily plastic. Heritable trait variation was strongly associated with temperature at the populations’ origin, and trait clines were consistent with in situ patterns, suggesting that temperature is the main driver of genetic differentiation in H. murinum . However, we detected that fitness peaked in populations originating from warmer climates, indicating that evolutionary responses may not keep pace with rapid environmental shifts. 4. Synthesis: Our results highlight that H. murinum harbors substantial heritable variation, shaped primarily by temperature. However, the pace of evolutionary change may be insufficient to track ongoing climate change, leaving populations potentially vulnerable to future environmental conditions.
Understanding the biochemical networks governing seed longevity is essential for germplasm conservation. Integrating germination potential with biochemical profiling elucidates metabolic transitions during decadal cold storage. As phenotypic evidence of ageing, extended cold storage induces a uniform decline in germination energy, reaching a terminal "floor effect" characterised by the complete exhaustion of repair-and-defence strategies, whilst residual germination capacity averages 21%. Metabolic profiling reveals that prolonged storage causes systemic decoupling of the protein-sugar axis, leading to the loss of protein-dependent vigour. The structural collapse of the proteomic architecture-manifested by the decoupling of embryo albumin-led coordination and endosperm α-zein dynamics-induces a transition to a low-vigour state, paralleled by carbohydrate shifts consistent with glassy matrix destabilisation, implicitly linking the displacement of sucrose-dominated stability to the molecular crowding of reducing sugars. Re-anchoring germination potential from primary metabolic drivers to soluble-free phenolics prompts a compensatory antioxidant reorganisation; under conditions of phenolic matrix degradation and carotenoid exhaustion, the observed stability of total antioxidant capacity likely reflects scavenging sustained by phenolic degradation products rather than native, intact protective mechanisms. Ultimately, seed ageing manifests as a genotype-specific systemic reconfiguration of biochemical coordination, where the physiological state of the cytoplasmic matrix and the maintenance of redox homeostasis determine residual viability, thereby defining the critical benchmarks for germplasm longevity.
Knowledge of population structure and genetic relationship among inbred lines is essential for exploiting heterosis in maize breeding programs. This study evaluated the concordance between 25k Illumina® Infinum Maize SNP (Single Nucleotide Polymorphism) Array (25k SNP array)-derived and ribonucleic acid (RNA)-sequencing (seq)-derived markers in estimating genetic relatedness and population structure within the Maize Research Institute “Zemun Polje” (MRIZP) breeding program. A panel of 28 elite MRIZP maize inbred lines, along with two public lines, was analyzed. For the RNA-seq data, three alternative SNP datasets were generated based on heterozygous-site handling (ALL, HOM, and FINAL) to assess their impact on downstream genetic inference. These approaches had distinct effects on clustering resolution and genetic relationship structure. The FINAL dataset, in which heterozygous positions were recoded as missing values and re-filtered, was selected as the most balanced dataset for comparative analyses with 25k SNP array data. Only a limited number of overlapping SNP positions were identified between RNA-seq and 25k SNP array datasets (six in ALL, two in FINAL, and none in HOM), all located within coding regions. Despite this minimal overlap, distance-based analyses revealed partial concordance in genetic relationship patterns and population structure between platforms. Genetic distances estimated from 25k SNP array markers were consistent with pedigree records and provided more informative insights than pedigree data alone. Population structure inferred from 25k SNP array data showed high concordance with previously defined heterotic groups, correctly assigning 29 out of 30 lines (96.67%) to their expected clusters. In contrast, RNA-seq-derived SNPs showed moderate concordance with expected heterotic groupings (56.67%), indicating that transcriptome-derived markers capture part of the underlying breeding structure, but do not fully resolve heterotic group separation. Overall, these results support the 25k SNP array as a robust tool for assessing genetic relatedness and population structure in maize breeding programs, while RNA-seq-derived SNPs provide complementary but less reliable information for routine heterotic assignment.
