Search Results (3)

Sapindus delavayi is a drought-resistant tree species endemic to the dry–hot valleys of Southwestern China and is of great significance for soil and water conservation and ecological restoration. In this study, we sequenced the transcriptome of its leaves using the Illumina HiSeq 4000 platform and obtained 96.12 Gb of high-quality data (Q20 = 98.68%, Q30 = 95.62%), which were de novo assembled to obtain 89,228 unigenes (N50 = 1538 bp), of which 63,005 (70.61%) were successfully annotated to at least one database (NR, NT, SwissProt, KOG, KEGG, GO, Pfam). Overall, 53.96% of the unigenes in the S. delavayi leaves were annotated to Acer yangbiense, which belongs to the same family as S. delavayi. A total of 42,870 CDSs and 21,488 SSR loci were detected, with the highest mononucleotide repeat rate at 42.72% of the total number. Drought stress experiments identified 669–1203 differentially expressed genes (DEGs). Through our research, the first high-quality transcriptome database of S. delavayi has been constructed and its drought-resistance-related gene features have been analyzed, laying an important foundation for future functional gene mining, molecular marker development, molecular diversity studies, molecular breeding, and ecological adaptation research. Full article

Sapindus delavayi (Franch.) Radlk. (S. delavayi) is an important biological washing material and biomass energy tree species with a peel rich in saponins and a kernel high in oil content. We used the maximum entropy model (MaxEnt) to predict the suitable habitats for S. delavayi in China, screen the dominant environmental factors affecting its distribution, and analyze the changes in its suitable habitats under future climate change. The results provide a scientific basis for its introduction, cultivation, and germplasm resource collection and protection. Twenty-two environmental variables and China distribution data for S. delavayi were used to construct the species distribution model, and the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to verify the model’s accuracy. The dominant environmental factors were screened through the jackknife method, then a geographical information system (ArcGIS) was used to determine the level of suitable habitat division and area calculation. The results showed that the MaxEnt model had an excellent predictive effect for which the area under the ROC curve (AUC) value was as high as 0.959. The annual precipitation (Bio18), minimum temperature of the coldest month (Bio6), temperature seasonality (Bio4), and precipitation of the coldest quarter (Bio19) were the dominant environmental factors that affected the distribution of S. delavayi. Under the current climate, the suitable area for S. delavayi is 1,321,308.07 km², and under the four climate scenarios for the 2050s and 2090s, the suitable area is predicted to change by −3.97%~2.57%. Overall, the centroids of the highly suitable habitats will shift by different degrees to the southwest in the future. Full article

Biodiesel has many advantages, yet its high price has become the main obstacle to market acceptance. Selecting non-edible woody oil plant resources and optimizing the oil extraction process will contribute to the effective utilization of raw materials and development of the related biodiesel industry. This study presents a detailed evaluation of two Sapindus species (Sapindus delavayi (Franch.) Radlk. and Sapindus mukorossi Gaertn.) as promising feedstocks for biodiesel production. As ultrasonic-assisted extraction (UAE) is considered a green and efficient oil extraction method, the process was optimized by response surface methodology (RSM) using a Box–Behnken design (BBD) in our study. The kernel oil yield of S. delavayi was up to 43.67% ± 0.16% under the optimized extraction conditions (the ultrasonic power was 109W, extracting at 65 °C for 25 min, and the liquid–solid ratio was 9 mL·g⁻¹). The kernel oil yield of S. mukorossi was as high as 45.96% ± 0.21% under the optimized extraction conditions (the ultrasonic power was 114W, extracting at 68 °C for 26 min, and the liquid–solid ratio was 9 mL·g⁻¹). The fatty acid profiles of S. delavayi and S. mukorossi kernel oils showed a high percentage of monounsaturated fatty acids (74.91% and 76.32%, respectively) and a low percentage of polyunsaturated fatty acids (11.11% and 7.83%, respectively) and saturated fatty acids (13.98% and 15.85%, respectively). Most of the properties of the two biodiesels conformed to EN 14214:2014, ASTM D6751–2018 and GB 25199–2017 standards, except for oxidation stability. In general, the results provided the optimized extraction method using ultrasound for the two species oil extraction and proved that the two kernel oils are potentially useful feedstocks for high-quality and low-cost biodiesel production. Full article