Research Groups
Plant Biology: Plant Molecular Biology
Research Interests and Description
Staff Research Scientist: M.K. Reddy, PhD
Group Leader: Sunil Kumar Mukherjee
Research Interests
Abiotic and Biotic stress, gene expression, signalling, crop improvement, transgenics, viral replication and RNAi.
Description of Research
Understanding plant adaptation to environmental stresses
Out of a large number of gene products that may play putative roles in plant adaptation to environmental stresses, gene products that are involved in key oxidative stress detoxification play an important role in preventing cellular-damage. The enhanced production of Reactive Oxygen Intermediates (ROIs) during abiotic stresses exceeds the ROI scavenging machinery of plants. The unquenched ROIs spontaneously react with organic molecules and cause membrane lipid peroxidation, protein oxidation, enzyme inhibition and DNA and RNA damage. The major ROI-scavenging enzymes produced by plants include Superoxide dismutase (SOD) Ascorbate peroxidase (Apx), Monodehydroascorbate reductase (MDHAR), Dehydroascorbate reductase (DHAR), Catalase (Cat), Glutathione reductase (GSHR) Glutathione-S transferase (GST) and Glutathione peroxidase (Gpx) and these are known to contribute in a major way to combating oxidative stress by deactivation of ROIs in multiple redox reactions.
Our current research is focused on establishing efficient ROI scavenging mechanisms in crop plants through transgenic overexpression of ROI detoxifying enzymes by in vitro gene pyramiding and simultaneous transformation of selected genes, for their regulated expression to prevent oxidative stress induced damage. Currently we are in the process of evaluating transgenic plants transformed with entire, ascorbate-glutathione pathway encoding genes for adaptation to environmental, stress induced, oxidative damage.
Recent Publications
Kaul, T., Reddy, P.S., Mahanty, S., Thirulogachandar, V., Reddy, R.A., Kumar, B., Sopory, S. K., Reddy, M.K. 2011. Biochemical and molecular characterization of stress-induced b-carbonic anhydrase from a C4 plant, Pennisetum glaucum. J Plant Physiol 168, 601-610 PubMed link
Mallikarjuna, G., Mallikarjuna, K., Reddy, M.K., Tanushri, K. 2011. Expression of OsDREB2A transcription factor confers enhanced dehydration and salt stress tolerance in rice (Oryza sativa L.). Biotechnol Lett 33, 1689-1697 PubMed link
Reddy, P.S., Thirulogachandar, V., Vaishnavi, C.S., Aakrati, A., Sopory, S.K., Reddy, M.K. 2011. Molecular characterization and expression of a gene encoding cytosolic Hsp90 from Pennisetum glaucum and its role in abiotic stress adaptation. Gene 474, 29-38 PubMed link
Thirulogachandar, V., Prachi, P., Vaishnavi, C.S., Reddy, M.K. 2011. An affinity-based genome walking method to find transgene integration loci in transgenic genome. Anal Biochem 416, 196-201 PubMed link
