The Council Newsletter · Dr. Abdelhafid Bendahmane organized a workshop entitled “Sex Chromosomes” on Sunday January 15, from 3:50 - 6:00 pm. Sex Chromosomes Organizers: Abdelhafid

Inside this issue...

Moroccan Scientists at the International PAG XX Conference ................................................................................................1-3

Council’s Members 2011-2012 Publications ............................................................................................................................ 4-5

Photos Gallery ................................................................................................................................................................................... 6

Comics Section .................................................................................................................................................................................... 7

Six Moroccan plant scientists were present at “The International Plant & Animal Genome Confer-ence XX” that was held January 14 - 18, 2012 in San Diego, CA. These were Dr. Khalid Meksem,

a Professor at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL, USA; Dr. Abdelhafid Bendahmane, the Vice-Director of URGV, INRA (& Universite d’Evry Val d’Essonne), France; Dr. Abdelmajid Kassem, Professor and Department Chair, Fayetteville State University, Fayetteville, NC, USA; Dr. Abdelali Barakat, Research Associate, Clemson University, Clemson, SC, USA; Dr. Faouzi Bekkaoui, an Interim Director, Canadian Research Council, Canada; and Dr. Amine Abbadi of Norddeutsche Pflanzen-zucht, Hohenlieth, Germany.

Dr. Khalid Meksem organized a worshop entitled “Genomics of Plant Development” on Sunday Janu-ary 15, from 3:50 - 6:00 pm.

Genomics of Plant Development

Organizer: Khalid Meksem (Southern Illinois University)Date: Sunday, January 15, 2012Time: 3:50 PM-6:00 PMRoom: Golden BallroomChair: Khalid Meksem

3:50 PM W371 Comparative Genomics Based on Large-Scale Parallel Transcriptomics of Root Development and Stress Response. Troy J. Stephenson, University of Missouri; Babu Valliyodan, University of Missouri; Henry T. Nguyen, University of Missouri & National Center for Soybean Biotechnology (NCSB).

4:10 PM W372 Shoot Branching and Leaf Dissection in Tomato Are Regulated by Homologous Gene Modules. Klaus Theres, Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research; Bernhard L. Busch, Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research; Gregor Schmitz, Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research; Susanne Ross-mann, Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research; Florence Piron, INRA URGV; Jia Ding, Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research; Abdelhafid Bendahmane, INRA URGV.

4:35 PM W373 GeneticControl of Natural Variation in Maize Shoot Apical Meristem Architecture. Addie M. Thompson, University of Minnesota; Lin Li, University of Minnesota; James E. Crants, University of Minne-sota; Jillian Foerster, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Jinliang Yang, Iowa State University; Natalia de Leon, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Shawn Kaeppler, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Nathan M. Springer, University of Minnesota; Patrick S. Schnable, Iowa State University; Marja Timmermans, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory; Jianming Yu, Kansas State University; Michael Scanlon, Cornell University; Gary Muehlbauer, University of Minnesota.

A Heavy Presence of American-Moroccan and European-Moroccan Plant Scientists at the International Plant & Animal Genome Conference XX in San Diego, CA

Published By The High-Council of Moroccan American Scholars and Academics (HC-MASA) Volume 2, Issue 3, January 2012

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4:55 PM W374 High-throughput Phenotyping – a Boost for Genomics in the 21st Century. Joerg Vandenhirtz, LemnaTec GmbH

5:15 PM W375 Identification and Expression Profiling of miRNAs and siRNAs in Chilled Vegetative Buds and Non-chilled Leaf Tissue in Peach. Abdelali Barakat, Clemson University; Aditya Sriram, Clemson University; Joseph Park, Penn State University; Tatyana Zhebentyayeva, Clemson University; Albert G. Abbott, Department of Genetics and Biochemistry, Clemson University.

5:35 PM W376 Neodiversification in the Paleotetraploid Soybean Genome: GmCLAVATA 1A, a GmNARK Paralogue Involved in the Control of Stem Nodal Identity But Not Root Nodulation. Saeid Mirzaei, University of Queensland; Brett J. Ferguson, University of Queensland; Khalid Meksem, Southern Illinois University; Jacqueline Batley, University of Queensland; Peter M. Gresshoff, University of Queensland.

Dr. Abdelhafid Bendahmane organized a workshop entitled “Sex Chromosomes” on Sunday January 15, from 3:50 - 6:00 pm.

Sex Chromosomes

Organizers: Abdelhafid Bendahmane(INRA URGV) and Ray Ming(University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign)Date: Sunday, January 15, 2012Time: 3:50 PM-6:00 PMRoom: Royal Palm Salon 5-6Chairs: Ray Ming and Abdelhafid Bendahmane

3:50 PM W631 Sex determination in salmonids. Ayaka Yano, INRA-SCRIBE; René Guyomard, INRA-GABI; Elodie Jouanno, INRA-SCRIBE; Alexis Fostier, INRA-SCRIBE; Edwige Quillet, INRA-GABI; Yann Guiguen, INRA-SCRIBE.

4:10 PM W632 Sex determination in poeciliids, a focus on the platyfish xiphophorus maculatus. Delphine Galiana, ENS de Lyon, IGFL; Astrid Böhne, ENS de Lyon, IGFL; Marta Tomaszkiewicz, ENS de Lyon, IGFL; Manfred Schartl, University of Wuerzburg; Jean-Nicolas Volff, ENS de Lyon, IGFL.

4:30 PM W633 Genomics of an ancient sex chromosome in Tilapia. Jean-François Baroiller, CIRAD; Lucile Soler, CIRAD; S. Bocs, CIRAD; M. Conte, University of Maryland; A. D’Hont, CIRAD; Thomas Kocher, University of Maryland; Ozouf Ozouf, Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle; H. D’Cotta, CIRAD.

4:50 PM W634 The Heterochromatic Region of the Bovine Y Chromosome Is Gene-Rich. Wansheng Liu, The Integrative Biosciences Program, Bioinformatics and Genomics Option, The Huck Institute of Life Sciences, The Pennsylvania State University; Ti-Cheng Chang, Department of Dairy and Animal Science, The Center for Reproductive Biology and Health (CRBH), College of Agricultural Sciences, The Pennsylvania State University.

5:10 PM W635 Evolution of sex chromosomes in Fragaria: insights from BAC sequences and phylogenomicsRajanikanth Govindarajulu, University of Pittsburgh; Matthew Parks, Oregon State University; Zachary Foster, Oregon State University; Aaron Liston, Oregon State University; Tia-Lynn Ashman, University of Pittsburgh.

5:30 PM W636 Rapid divergence and expansion of X chromosome in papaya. Andrea Gschwend, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Qingyi Yu, Texas A&M University; Ray Ming, University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign.

Dr. Abdelali Barakat gave an oral presentation entitled “Identification and Expression Profiling of miRNAs and siRNAs As in Chilled Vegetative Buds and Non-Chilled Leaf Tissues in Peach”. W375.

A Heavy Presence of American-Moroccan and European-Moroccan Plant Scientists at the International Plant & Animal Genome Conference XX in San Diego, CA -- Continued

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Dr. Kassem and his students presented four posters as follows:

P0425 QTL For Yield and Yield Components Mapped in the ‘PI 438489B’ By ‘Hamilton’ Recombinant Inbred Line Population of Soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.]. Richard Bazzelle, Bobby Ragin, Willsheanna Clark, Khalid Meksem, Stella Kantartzi, and Abdelmajid Kassem.

P0426 Quantitative Trait Loci (QTL) for Seed Isofalvones Contents Mapped in the ‘PI 438489B’ by ‘Hamilton’ Recombinant Inbred Line Population of Soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.]. Richard Bazzelle, Bobby Ragin, Stella Kantartzi, Khalid Meksem, and Abdelmajid Kassem.

P0430 Genetic Analysis of Root and Shoot Traits in the Soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] ‘Essex’ By ‘Forrest’ Re-combinant Inbred Line Population. Brensha Williams, Ronald Williams, Stella Kantartzi, Abdelali Barakat, David Lightfoot, Khalid Meksem, and Abdelmajid Kassem.

P0434 Genetic Analysis of Relative Water Content (RWC) in Two Recombinant Inbred Line Populations of Soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.]. Virginia Salvador, Megan Pagan, Melissa Cooper, Richard Bazzelle, Bobby Ragin, Stella Kantartzi, Abdelali Barakat, David A. Lightfoot, Khalid Meksem, and Abdelmajid Kassem.

Other Posters:

P0063 The Rose Genome Sequence Initiative. Fabrice Foucher, Soulaiman Sakr, Mohammed Bendahmane, Marinus Smulders, Thomas Debener, Jan De Riek, Ana Maria Torres, Iraida Amaya, Teresa Millan, Daniel Zamir, Dan Sargent, Hilde Nybom, Atanas Atanassov, Stan C. Hokanson, David Byrne, Bryon Sosinski, Dorrie Main, Anne Bruneau, Jasper Rees, and Shogo Matsumoto.

P0438 Recombinants Screening and High Resolution Genetic Mapping of the rhg1 Locus, and the Identification of Candidate Genes for Resistance to Soybean Cyst Nematode. Shiming Liu, Pramod K. Kandoth, Melissa G. Mitchum, Silvia Cianzio, and Khalid Meksem.

P0493 Identification of Conserved and Non-conserved microRNAs and Their Targets in Peach. Abdelali Bara-kat, Aditya Sriram, Joseph Park, Tatyana Zhebentyayeva, and Albert G. Abbott.

P0520 The Chinese Chestnut (Castanea Mollissima) Genome Project. Charles Addo-Quaye, Lynn P. Tomsho, Mar-garet Staton, Stephen Ficklin, Christopher Saski, Richard Burhans, Tyler Kane Wagner, Daniela Drautz, Nicole Zembower, Abdelali Barakat, C. Dana Nelson, Thomas Kubisiak, Albert G. Abbott, Fred Hebard, Webb Miller, Stephan C. Schuster, and John E. Carlson.

P0438 Recombinants Screening and High Resolution Genetic Mapping of the rhg1 Locus, and the Identification of Candidate Genes for Resistance to Soybean Cyst Nematode. Shiming Liu, Pramod K. Kandoth, Melissa G. Mitchum, Silvia Cianzio, and Khalid Meksem.

Oral Presentations:W376 Neodiversification in the Paleotetraploid Soybean Genome: GmCLAVATA 1A, a GmNARK Paralogue

Involved in the Control of Stem Nodal Identity But Not Root Nodulation. Saeid Mirzaei, Brett J. Ferguson, Khalid Meksem, Jacqueline Batley, and Peter M. Gresshoff.

W437 Genetic Components of Developmental Signaling for Nodulation and Nodal Identity Control in Soybean. Peter M. Gresshoff, Dugald E Dugald, Yu-Hsiang Lin, Satomi Hayashi, Saeid Mirzaei, Dongxue Li, Alina Tollenaere, Meng-Han Lin, Jacqueline Batley, Khalid Meksem, Brett J. Ferguson.

W297 QTL Mapping and Targeted Sequencing of Genomic Regions Conferring Resistance to Chestnut Blight (Cryphonectria parasitica) and Ink Disease (Phytophthora cinnamomi). Margaret Staton, Bode Olukolu, Tatyana Zhebentyayeva, Eric Fang, Lynn P. Tomsho, Stephan Shuster, Abdelali Barakat, Charles Addo-Quaye, Joe James, Steven N. Jeffers, Thomas Kubisiak, C. Dana Nelson, Albert G. Abbott, and John E. Carlson.

The Council’s Publications Team

A Heavy Presence of American-Moroccan and European-Moroccan Plant Scientists at the International Plant & Animal Genome Conference XX in San Diego, CA -- Continued

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Council’s Members 2011-2012 Publications2012 Publications:

Brodersen P, Sakvarelidze-Achard L, Schaller H, Khafif M, Schott G, Bendahmane A, Voin-net O. Isoprenoid biosynthesis is required for miRNA function and affects membrane asso-ciation of ARGONAUTE 1 in Arabidopsis. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012 Jan 12.

Braun N, de Saint Germain A, Pillot JP, Boutet-Mercey S, Dalmais M, Antoniadi I, Li X, Maia-Grondard A, Le Signor C, Bouteiller N, Luo D, Bendahmane A, Turnbull C, Rameau C. The Pea TCP Transcription Factor PsBRC1 Acts Downstream of Strigolactones to Control Shoot Branching. Plant Physiol. 158 (1): 225-238, 2012.

Williams Brensha, Stella K. Kantartzi, Khalid Me-ksem, Robert L. Grier IV, Abdelali Bara kat, David A. Lightfoot, and My Abdelmajid Kas-sem. Genetic Analysis of Root and Shoot Traits in the ‘Essex’ By ‘Forrest’ Recombinant Inbred Line (RIL) Population of Soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.]. Journal of Plant Genome Sciences 1 (1) 1-9, 2012.

Kassem MA, L Ramos, L Leandro, G Mbofung, DL Hyten, SK Kantartzi, RL Grier, VN Njiti, S Cianzio, and K Meksem. The ‘PI 438489B’ by ‘Hamilton’ SNP-Based genetic linkage map of soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] identified quantitative trait loci that underlie seedling SDS resistance. Journal of Plant Genome Sci-ences 1 (1) 18-30, 2012.

2011 Publications:

Busch BL, Schmitz G, Rossmann S, Piron F, Ding J, Bendahmane A, Theres K. Shoot branching and leaf dissection in tomato are regulated by homologous gene modules. Plant Cell. 23 (10): 3595-609, 2011.

Ivey S, K Ouertani, E Washington, P Lage, SK Kan-tartzi, K Meksem, DA Lightfoot, and MA Kas-sem. Evaluation of Agronomic Traits in ‘Essex’ By ‘Forrest’ Recombinant Inbred Line Popula-tion of Soybean [Glycine max [L.] Merr.]. Atlas Journal of Plant Biology 1 (1): 13-17, 2011.

Ouertani K, E Washington, P Lage, S Woods, W Hol-land, L Moore, J Walker, DA Lightfoot, and MA Kassem. Comparison of Soybean [Gly-cine max (L.) Merr.] Yield, Yield Components, Root, and Shoot Traits in ESPS and CSPS. Atlas

Journal of Plant Biology 1 (1): 1–5, 2011.Sturbois BN, Dubrana-Ourabah MP, Gombert J, Las-

seur B, Macquet A, Faure C, Bendahmane A, Baur S I, Candresse T. Identification and char-acterization of tomato mutants affected in the Rx-mediated resistance to PVX isolates. Mol Plant Microbe Interact. 2011 Nov 16.

González M, Xu M, Esteras C, Roig C, Monforte AJ, Troadec C, Pujol M, Nuez F, Bendahmane A, Garcia-Mas J, Picó B. Towards a TILLING plat-form for functional genomics in Piel de Sapo melons. BMC Res Notes. 2011 Aug 11; 4:289.

Clepet C, Joobeur T, Zheng Y, Jublot D, Huang M, Tru-niger V, Boualem A, Hernandez-Gonzalez ME, Dolcet-Sanjuan R, Portnoy V, Mascarell-Creus A, Caño-Delgado AI, Katzir N, Bendahmane A, Giovannoni JJ, Aranda MA, Garcia-Mas J, Fei Z. Analysis of expressed sequence tags generated from full-length enriched cDNA li-braries of melon. BMC Genomics. 2011 May 20;12:252.

Martín-Trillo M, Grandío EG, Serra F, Marcel F, Ro-dríguez-Buey ML, Schmitz G, Theres K, Ben-dahmane A, Dopazo H, Cubas P. Role of tomato BRANCHED1-like genes in the control of shoot branching. Plant J. 67 (4): 701-714, 2011.

Liu X, Liu S, Jamai A, Bendahmane A, Lightfoot DA, Mitchum MG, Meksem K. Soybean cyst nema-tode resistance in soybean is independent of the Rhg4 locus LRR-RLK gene. Funct Integr Ge-nomics. 11 (4): 539-549, 2011.

Ming R, Bendahmane A, Renner SS. Sex chromo-somes in land plants. Annu Review of Plant Bi-ology 62: 485-514, 2011.

Chang YL, Chuang HW, Meksem K, Wu FC, Chang CY, Zhang M, Zhang HB. Characterization of a plant-transformation-ready large-insert BIBAC library of Arabidopsis and bombard-ment transformation of a large-insert BIBAC of the library into tobacco. Genome 54 (6): 437-447, 2011.

Barakat A, Choi A, Yassin NB, Park JS, Sun Z, Carl-son JE. Comparative genomics and evolutionary analyses of the O-methyltransferase gene family in Populus. Gene. 2011 Feb 18.

Xie Q, Soutto M, Xu X, Zhang Y, Johnson CH. Bio-luminescence resonance energy transfer (BRET) imaging in plant seedlings and mammalian cells. Methods Mol Biol. 2011;680:3-28.

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Martín-Trillo M, Grandío EG, Serra F, Marcel F, Rodríguez-Buey ML, Schmitz G, Theres K, Ben-dahmane A, Dopazo H, Cubas P. Role of tomato BRANCHED1-like genes in the control of shoot branching. Plant J. 2011.

Ruben E, Jamai A, Afzal J, Njiti VN, Triwitayakorn K, Iqbal MJ, Yaegashi S, Bashir R, Kazi S, Arelli P, Town CD, Ishihara H, Meksem K, Lightfoot DA. Er-ratum to: Genomic analysis of the rhg1 locus: can-didate genes that underlie soybean resistance to the cyst nematode. Mol Genet Genomics. 2011.

Ming R, Bendahmane A, Renner SS. Sex chromo-somes in land plants. Annu Rev Plant Biol. 62:485-514, 2011.

Soutto M, Belkhiri A, Piazuelo MB, Schneider BG, Peng D, Jiang A, Washington MK, Kokoye Y, Crowe SE, Zaika A, Correa P, Peek RM Jr, El-Rifai W. Loss of TFF1 is associated with activation of NF-kB-mediated inflammation and gastric neo-plasia in mice and humans. J Clin Invest. 2011 May 2;121(5):1753-67.

Vangamudi B, Zhu S, Soutto M, Belkhiri A, El-Rifai W. Regulation of B-catenin by t-DARPP in upper gastrointestinal cancer cells. Mol Cancer. 2011 Mar 29;10:32.

Jackson K, Soutto M, Peng D, Hu T, Marshal D, El-Ri-fai W. Epigenetic silencing of somatostatin in gas-tric cancer. Dig Dis Sci. 2011 Jan;56(1):125-30.

Wolff LS, El Ayadi AM, Lyons NJ, Herr-Zaya K, Noll D, Perfas F, Rots G. Improving the alcohol retail environment to reduce youth access: a

Council’s Members 2011-2012 Publications - Continued

randomized community trial of a best practices toolkit intervention. J Community Health. 2011 Jun;36(3):357-66.

Qu Y, Karnabi E, Ramadan O, Yue Y, Chahine M, Boutjdir M. Perinatal and Postnatal Expression of Cav1.3 alpha-1D Ca2+ Channel in the Rat Heart. Pediatr Res. 2011 Jun;69(6):479-84.

Karnabi E, Qu Y, Mancarella S, Boutjdir M. Res-cue and Worsening of Congenital Heart Block-Associated Electrocardiographic Abnormalities in Two Transgenic Mice. J Cardiovasc Electrophysiol. 2011.

Dworkin I, Anderson JA, Idaghdour Y, Parker EK, Stone EA, Gibson G. The Effects of Weak Ge-netic Perturbations on the Transcriptome of the Wing Imaginal Disc and Its Association With Wing Shape in Drosophila melanogaster. Genet-ics. 2011 Apr;187(4):1171-84.

Hamamouch N, Li C, Seo PJ, Park CM, Davis EL. Expression of Arabidopsis pathogenesis-relat-ed genes during nematode infection. Mol Plant Pathol. 2011 May;12(4):355-64.

Barakat A, Choi A, Yassin NB, Park JS, Sun Z, Carl-son JE. Comparative genomics and evolutionary analyses of the O-methyltransferase gene family in Populus. Gene. 2011 Jun 15;479(1-2):37-46.

Congratulations to All Members!Keep Up The Good Work!Council’s Publications Team

The Beautiful San Diego, CA!

San Diego 2012 -- Photo Gallery

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Comics Section

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The Council Welcomes All Its New Members Who Joined Us in 2011 and 2012.

The Council’s Newsletter 7Published By The High Council of Moroccan American Scholars & Academics (HC-MASA)Volume 2, Issue 3, 2012