Cork is an ancestral natural material derived from the cork oak tree (Quercus suber L.) with multiple industrial applications. During the recent years, this material has been the subject of several studies. The recent sequencing of the Q. suber genome opened the possibility to make new studies regarding cork quality. In this study, the transcriptomes of cork with superior and poor quality are compared to highlight new molecular pathways and identify SNPs that can be associated to cork traits, which remain one of the main concerns of the cork industry.

Cork oak (Quercus suber L.) is a valuable forest species in the western Mediterranean Basin due to its ecological value and the production of cork (a renewable natural material). Cork quality depends on the genetic background and cork oak environment, which has long been recognized. As no cork oak genetic trials with pedigree information were available, the inference of the genetic relatedness between individuals from molecular markers can potentially be applied to natural populations. This work aimed to investigate the potential of performing kinship prediction and pedigree reconstruction by SNP genotyping a natural cork oak population. A total of 494 trees located in Portugal were genotyped with 8K SNPs. The raw SNP set was filtered differently, producing four SNP sets that were further filtered by missing data, genotype frequency, and minor allele frequency. For each set, an identity by descent (IBD) matrix was generated to perform the relationship prediction, revealing from 22,114 to 23,859 relationships. Familial categories from the first to the third degree were able to be assigned. The feasibility of SNP genotyping for future studies on the kinship analysis and pedigree reconstruction of cork oak populations was demonstrated. The information produced may be used in further breeding and conservation programs for cork oak.

Stone pine (Pinus pinea L.) is an emblematic tree distributed around the whole Mediterranean basin. The species is well known for the economics of its timber, resins and edible seeds, the stone pine nuts commercialized in the food industry. Despite its relevance, the genomic information available for the species is scarce, and until now no reference genome has been available. The main purpose of this study was to characterize the stone pine transcriptome of seven different tissues, by performing a de novo transcriptome assembly. A total of 55,328 genes were predicted and functionally annotated based on the SWISS-PROT and nr-NCBI databases and InterProScan signatures.

The pace at which multidrug-resistant strains emerge has been alarming. P. stuartii is an infrequent but relevant drug-resistant nosocomial pathogen causing local to systemic life-threatening infections. We propose an alternative approach to fight this bacterium based on the properties of phage tailspikes with depolymerase activity that degrade the surface bacterial polymers, making the bacteria susceptible to the immune system. Unlike antibiotics, phage tailspikes have narrow and specific substrate spectra, and by acting as antivirulent but not bactericidal agents they do not cause the selection of resistant bacteria.