Current Projects:
Powdery mildew resistance - Identify powdery mildew resistant and susceptible strawberry cultivars that will serve as genetic material for studying the inheritance and the nature of strawberry powdery mildew resistance.
- Studying the physical and metabolic mechanism of resistance to powdery mildew in strawberry.
- Evaluation of leaf-discs infection method for testing powdery mildew resistance of strawberry progenies in breeding programs.
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DNA markers - Development of DNA markers infrastructure as a tool for strawberry genetic studies and cultivar identification.
Strawberry Antioxidants - Searching for strawberry cultivars with high levels of phytochemical compounds including: vitamin C, flavonoids and other phenolic substance and studying the environmental factors influencing their accumulation.
BREEDING ACTIVITY
Development of improved strawberry cultivars
Breeding focus:
- Earliness.
- Disease resistance, especially powdery mildew and anthracnose.
- Fruit quality (sugars, acids, aroma and antioxidant capacity as well as firmness, shape and color).
Germplasm:
- Preserving a genetic collection of strawberry lines as a resource for breeding and research.
- Expanding the Israeli strawberry germplasm collection from international strawberry resources.
Selected Publications:
1. Dai N., Schaffer A., Petreikov M. and Granot D. (1995). Cloning of Arabidopsis thaliana hexokinase cDNA by complementation of yeast cells. Plant Physiology 108: 879-880
2. Granot D. and Dai N. (1996). The 5' untranslated region of Arabidopsis thaliana calmodulin cDNA is an independent cDNA containing an open reading frame. Planta 198: 162-163
3. Kanayama Y., Dai N., Granot D., Petreikov M., Schaffer A. and Bennett A. (1997). Divergent fructokianse genes are differentially expressed in tomato. Plant Physiology 113:1379-1384
4. Granot D. and Dai N. (1997). Sugar induced cell death in yeast is dependent on the rate of sugar phosphorylation as determined by Arabidopsis thaliana hexokinase. Cell Death and Differentiation 4: 555-559
5. Dai N., Schaffer A., Petreikov M. and Granot D. (1997). Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) fructokinase expressed in yeast exhibits inhibition by fructose of both in vitro enzyme activity and rate of cell proliferation. Plant Science 128:191-197
6. Kanayama Y., Granot D., Dai N., Petriekov M., Schaffer A. Powell A. and Bennett A. B. (1997). Tomato fructokinases exhibit differential expression and substrate regulation. Plant Physiology 117:85-90
7. Radi. A., Granot D., Mahler-Slasky Y., Halpern N., Dai. N. and Galun E. (1999). Saccharomyces cerevisiae cells harboring the gene encoding sarcotoxin IA secrete a peptide that is toxic to plant pathogenic bacteria. Protein Expr Purif 16:120-124
8. Dai N., Schaffer A., Petreikov M., Shahak Y., Giller Y., Ratner K., Levine A. and Granot D. (1999). Overexpression of arabidopsis hexokinase in tomato plants inhibits growth, reduces photosynthesis and induces rapid senescence. Plant Cell 11: 1253-1266
9. Schaffer A., Petreikov M., Miron D., Fogelman M., Spiegelman M., Bnei-Moshe Z., Shen S., Granot D., Hadas R., Dai N., Levine I., Bar M., Friedman M., Pilowsky M., Gilboa N. and Chen L. (1999). Modification of carbohydrate content in developing tomato fruit. Hort. Science 34: 12-15
10. Menu T., Rothan C., Dai N., Petreikov M., Etienne C., Destrac-Irvine A., Schaffer A., Granot D. and Ricard B. (2000). Cloning and characterization of a cDNA encoding hexokinase from tomato. Plant Science 260: 209-218
11. Petreikov M., Dai N., Granot D. and Schaffer A. (2001). Characterization of native and yeast expressed tomato fructokinase enzymes. Phytochemsitry 58: 841-847
12. Dai N., German M., Matsevitz T., Hanael R., Swartzberg D., Yeselson Y., Petreikov M., Schaffer A. A. and Granot D. (2002). LeFRK2, the gene encoding the major fructokinase in tomato fruits, is not required for starch accumulation in developing fruits. Plant Science 162: 423-430
13. Dai N., Kandel M., Petreikov M., Hanael R., Levin I., Ricard B., Rothan C., Schaffer A. A. and Granot D. (2002). The tomato hexokinase LeHXK1: cloning, mapping, expression pattern and phylogenetic relationships. Plant Science 163: 581-590
14. German A. M., Dai N., Chmelnitsky I., Sobolev I., Salts Y., Barg R., Schaffer A. A., and Granot D. (2002). LeFRK4, a novel tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) fructokinase specifically expressed in stamens. Plant Science 163: 607-613.
15. German M*., Dai N*., Matsevitz T., Hanael R., Petreikov M., Berenstein N., Shahak Y., Schaffer A.A. and Granot D. (2003) *equal contribution Suppression of fructokinase encoded by LeFRK2 in tomato stem inhibits growth and causes wilting of young leaves. Plant J. 34(6): 837-846
16. Menu T., Saglio P., Granot D., Dai N., Raymond P. and Ricard B. (2003) High hexokinase activity in tomato fruit perturbs carbon and energy metabolism and reduces fruit and seed size. Plant, Cell & Environment 27: 89-98
17. German M.A., Asher I., Petreikov M., Dai N., Schaffer A. A. and Granot D. (2004). Cloning, expression and characterization of LeFRK3, the fourth tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) gene encoding fructokinase. Plant Science 166:285-291
18. Swartzberg D., Dai N., Gan S., Amasino R. and Granot D. (2006) Effects of cytokinin production under two SAG promoters on senescence and development of tomato plants. Plant Biology 8(5):579-586
19. Dai N., Petreikov M., Portnoy V., Katzir N., Pharr D. M., Schaffer A. A. (2006) Cloning and expression analysis of a UDPgalactose/glucose pyrophosphorylase from melon fruit provides evidence for the major metabolic pathway of galactose metabolism in raffinose oligosaccharide metabolizing plants. Plant Physiol. 142: 294-304
20. Fait A., Hanhineva K., Beleggia R., Dai N., Rogachev I., Nikiforova V.J., Fernie A.R. and Aharoni A. (2008) Reconfiguration of the achene and receptacle metabolic networks during strawberry fruit development. Plant Physiol. DOI:10.1104/pp.108.120691
21. Lifshitz C., David N., Shalit N., Slotzky S., Tanami Z., Elad Y., and Dai N. (2007) Inheritance of powdery mildew resistance in strawberry lines from the Israeli germplasm collection. P. 70-74. In: Takeda, F., D.T. Handley, and E.B. Poling (ed.). Proc. 2007 N. American Strawberry Symposium. North American Strawberry Growers Association, Kemptville, ON Canada. pdf