Amolkumar U. Solanke

• PhD Plant Molecular Biology
• Senior Scientist at ICAR - National Institute for Plant Biotechnology

Developing an efficient and reproducible regeneration protocol holds paramount significance for advancing genetic transformation technologies in rice, facilitating their utilisation in crop improvement. Nagina 22 (N22), a climate-resilient Aus-type rice genotype known for its tolerance against multiple stresses, lacks a standardised transformation...

Gladiolus (Gladiolus hybridus L.) is a popular ornamental crop, known for its vibrant flowers and extensive diversity in color, size, shape, and blooming characteristics-traits that distinguish its species and genotypes. This study aimed to assess genetic diversity and agro-morphological traits in 30 gladiolus genotypes, using Sequence-Related Ampl...

The genus Heliconia exhibits remarkable diversity, particularly in the morphological traits of its plants. Notable variations in the color and size of inflorescence bracts, along with differences in flower type and size, are key markers for distinguishing species and genotypes. This extensive morphological diversity, observed at both interspecies a...

Gladiolus ( Gladiolus hybridus L.) is a popular ornamental crop, known for its vibrant flowers and extensive diversity in color, size, shape, and blooming characteristics—traits that distinguish its species and genotypes. This study aimed to assess genetic diversity and agro-morphological traits in 30 Gladiolus genotypes, using Sequence-Related Amp...

The genus Heliconia exhibits remarkable diversity, particularly in the morphological traits of its plants. Notable variations in the color and size of inflorescence bracts, along with differences in flower type and size, are key markers for distinguishing species and genotypes. This extensive morphological diversity, observed at both interspecies a...

Main conclusion The review article summarizes the approaches and potential targets to address the challenges of anti-nutrient like phytic acid in millet grains for nutritional improvement. Abstract Millets are a diverse group of minor cereal grains that are agriculturally important, nutritionally rich, and the oldest cereals in the human diet. The...

The genus Agave, indigenous to Mexico, comprises approximately 15 species, 3 varieties, and a few commercially cultivated cultivars. Despite its ornamental value and global economic importance, the development of new cultivars has been limited, with only two primary varieties and around 20 single and double-flower cultivars currently in cultivation...

MicroRNAs are key players involved in stress responses in plants and reports are available on the role of miRNAs in drought stress response in rice. This work reports the development of a database, RiceMetaSys: Drought-miR, based on the meta-analysis of publicly available sRNA datasets. From 28 drought stress-specific sRNA datasets, we identified 2...

Developing a highly efficient and reproducible plant regeneration protocol holds paramount significance in advancing technology for the genetic transformation of rice genotypes, facilitating their further utilization in crop improvement and breeding programs. Nagina 22 (N22), an aus type rice genotype, has tolerance against multiple stresses, requi...

To sustainably increase wheat yield to meet the growing world population’s food demand in the face of climate change, Conservation Agriculture (CA) is a promising approach. Still, there is a lack of genomic studies investigating the genetic basis of crop adaptation to CA. To dissect the genetic architecture of 19 morpho-physiological traits that co...

The present study was carried out during 2018–22 at ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi to identify the appropriate ovule age (days after pollination-DAP) to rescue the in ovulo embryo after pollination in various seedless grape (Vitis vinifera L.) genotypes and their cross combinations. The research revealed that in in vitro ovu...

Bougainvillea is one of the important ornamental crop with numerous use in floriculture and landscaping. To develop new superior varieties to curb the increasing demanding population there is need to know the ploidy status of currently available varieties of bougainvillea. Flow cytometry is a recent technology that is used to analyse the physical a...

Potato is a globally significant crop, crucial for food security and nutrition. Assessing vital nutritional traits is pivotal for enhancing nutritional value. However, traditional wet lab methods for the screening of large germplasms are time- and resource-intensive. To address this challenge, we used near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS) f...

This study aimed to understand the genetics of tomato leaf curl New Delhi virus (ToLCNDV) in the identified novel source of resistance from Indian melon germplasm DSM-19 ( Cucumis melo var. momordica ) as viral diseases in muskmelon cause significant economic yield loss. To achieve this, a cross was made between the highly susceptible genotype Pusa...

Nearly two decades of revolution in the area of genomics serves as the basis of present day molecular breeding in major food crops such as rice. Here we report an open source database on two major biotic stresses of rice, named RiceMetaSysB, which provides detailed information about rice blast and bacterial blight (BB) responsive genes (RGs). Meta-...

Unlabelled: Chaetomium globosum Kunze, an internationally recognized biocontrol fungus. It mycoparasitizes various plant pathogens and produce antifungal metabolites to suppress the growth of pathogenic fungi. Lack of detailed genome level diversity studies has delimited the development and utilization of potential C. globosum strains. The present...

Background Deficiency of vitamin E results in several neurological and age-related disorders in humans. Utilization of maize mutants with favourable vte4-allele led to the development of several α-tocopherol (vitamin E) rich (16–19 µg/g) maize hybrids worldwide. However, the degradation of tocopherols during post-harvest storage substantially affec...

Tomato leaf curl New Delhi virus (ToLCNDV) is an emerging constraint in muskmelon production in India and other parts of the world. This study aims to identify the new sources of resistance against ToLCNDV from Indian melon germplasm, which has not been evaluated globally. Sixty melon germplasm comprising of both cultivated commercial types (vars....

To combat drought stress in rice, a major threat to global food security, three major quantitative trait loci for ‘yield under drought stress’ (qDTYs) were successfully exploited in the last decade. However, their molecular basis still remains unknown. To understand the role of secondary regulation by miRNA in drought stress response and their rela...

An experiment was conducted during the rainy (kharif) season of 2019 and 2020 at ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi to identify the potential genotypes having good horticultural traits along with strong and durable resistance against ToLCV disease of tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.). A diverse set of 30 tomato genotypes carrying...

High temperature causes several morphological, physiological, and biochemical changes in crop plants, and garden pea is highly sensitive to a higher temperature than other legume crops. This study assessed garden pea genotypes' physiological and biochemical responses during a reproductive stage in regular and heat stress season at the Division of V...

Present agricultural research is mainly focused on major crops such as rice, wheat, oilseeds, and cotton, ignoring locally important minor crops. Small millets encompass the collection of Poaceae family small-seeded cereal crops. This includes finger millet, foxtail millet, proso millet, barnyard millet, kodo millet, little millet, tef, fonio, job’...

Cluster bean (Cyamopsis tetragonoloba (L.) Taub 2n = 14, is commonly known as Guar. Apart from being a vegetable crop, it is an abundant source of a natural hetero-polysaccharide called guar gum or galactomannan. Here, we are reporting a chromosome-scale reference genome assembly of a popular cluster bean cultivar RGC-936, by combining sequencing d...

Ageing is a complex and useful method of post-harvest improvement in rice grain quality. Till date, limited information is available for longer period (upto 24 months) of rice ageing. This is the first comprehensive study to provide optimum period of rice ageing based on dynamics of nutritional, textural, cooking, pasting, and sensory properties of...

In the current global warming scenario, it is imperative to develop crops with improved heat tolerance or acclimation, for which knowledge of major heat stress-tolerant genes or genomic regions is a prerequisite. Though several quantitative trait loci (QTLs) for heat tolerance have been mapped in rice, candidate genes from these QTLs have not been...

Kinnow (Citrus nobilis Lour. × Citrus deliciosa Ten.) needs to be genetically improved for traits such as seedlessness using biotechnological tools. Indirect somatic embryogenesis (ISE) protocols have been reported for citrus improvement. However, its use is restricted due to frequent occurrences of somaclonal variation and low recovery of plantlet...

Rice blast is a dreadful disease that causes enormous losses in rice production worldwide. To develop blast resistant rice cultivars, it is necessary to identify resistance and defence regulator genes and the underlying mechanism of resistance. A novel von Willebrand factor domain A containing genes OsvWA36 and OsvWA37 in Tetep cultivar of rice reg...

Functional characterization of stress-responsive genes through the analysis of transgenic plants is a standard approach to comprehend their role in climate resilience and subsequently exploit them for sustainable crop improvement. In this study, we investigated the function of LOC_Os04g59420, a gene of DUF740 family (OsSRDP- Oryza sativa Stress Res...

Aim: To understand the mechanism of necrosis incited by a host-selective phytotoxin designated as Rhizoctonia solani toxin (RST) identified to be a potential pathogenic factor of Rhizoctonia solani AG1 IA, causing sheath blight (ShB) of rice. Methods and results: The metabolomic changes induced by the phytotoxic metabolite in a ShB susceptible r...

This edited book covers all aspects of omics approaches used for the varietal improvement of millets in changing climatic conditions. Millets are the collection of small-grained cereal grasses, that are grown for human carbohydrate needs. They are among the oldest crops, mainly divided into two groups – Major and small millets based on seed size. S...

von Willebrand factor A (vWA) genes are well characterized in humans except for few BONZAI genes, but the vWA genes are least explored in plants. Considering the novelty and vital role of vWA genes, the present study was aimed at characterization of vWA superfamily in rice. Rice genome was found to have 40 vWA genes distributed across all the 12 ch...

Finger millet (Eleusine coracana) a Poaceae family member, is the sixth important food crop, which has very high nutritional value but can be grown in a variety of problem soils and marginal areas. Commonly known as “ragi,” the crop is known for its tolerance to various abiotic stresses like drought, high temperature, alkaline/low pH, and saline so...

Small millets belong to a Poaceae family that are widely cultivated and superior to other cereals for their nutritional quality. Genomic databases are designed for research purposes, it contains large repositories of DNA sequences, open reading frames (ORFs), intergenic sequences, and whole genome sequences of important crop species. Nuclear genome...

A wealth of microarray and RNA-seq data for studying abiotic stress tolerance in rice exists but only limited studies have been carried out on multiple stress-tolerance responses and mechanisms. In this study, we identified 6657 abiotic stress-responsive genes pertaining to drought, salinity and heat stresses from the seedling stage microarray data...

Rice is a global food grain crop for more than one-third of the human population and a source for food and nutritional security. Rice production is subjected to various stresses; blast disease caused by Magnaporthe oryzae is one of the major biotic stresses that has the potential to destroy total crop under severe conditions. In the present review,...

'Candidatus Phytoplasma' is an uncultivated, intracellular bacterial plant pathogen transmitted by phloem-feeding insect vectors. Among the group of phytoplasmas, the Peanut Witches' Broom or 16SrII group of phytoplasmas associated with various diseases cause severe crop losses every year in India. The 'Ca. Phytoplasma sp.' strain SS02 was associat...

Among the different types of disease, panicle blast is the most devastating kind of biotic stress responsible for yield loss in rice. Screening of rice crops against the panicle blast is always a big problem to solve, as it requires an efficient method of inoculation, an artificial facility to provide the necessary temperature and humidity for fung...

Domain of Unknown Function 740 (DUF740) is a gene family that has not been functionally elucidated in rice, until now. We investigated the function of rice DUF740 gene family member, LOC_Os04g59420 ( OsSRDP- O ryza s ativa S tress R esponsive D UF740 P rotein) which showed upregulation in response to drought stress in the available global expressio...

Cytokinin glucosyltransferases (CGTs) are key enzymes of plants for regulating the level and function of cytokinins. In a genomic identification of rice CGTs, 41 genes with the plant secondary product glycosyltransferases (PSPG) motif of 44-amino-acid consensus sequence characteristic of plant uridine diphosphate (UDP)-glycosyltransferases (UGTs) w...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fpls.2021.748013.].

Rice is an important staple food grain consumed by most of the population around the world. With climate and environmental changes, rice has undergone a tremendous stress state which has impacted crop production and productivity. Plant growth hormones are essential component that controls the overall outcome of the growth and development of the pla...

Panicle blast is the most severe type of rice blast disease. Screening of rice genotypes for panicle blast resistance at the field level requires an efficient and robust method of inoculation. Here, we standardized a method that can be utilized for both small- and large-scale screening and assessment of panicle blast infection and disease reaction....

Understanding of aquaporins (AQPs) facilitating the transport of water and many other small solutes including metalloids like silicon (Si) and arsenic (As) is important to develop stress tolerant cultivars. In the present study, 40 AQPs were identified in the genome of pigeonpea (Cajanus cajan), a pulse crop widely grown in semi-arid region and are...

Though the vascular wilt of tomato caused by the species of Fusarium is globally reported to be a complex disease in certain countries, for example, India, our studies indicated that the disease is caused by either Fusarium oxysporum f. spp. lycopersici (Fol) or Fusarium solani (FS) with the Fol being widely prevalent. In assessing the genetic dive...

Chaetomium globosum is a potential biological control agent effective against various plant pathogens. Several reports are available on the mycoparastism and antibiosis mechanisms of C. globosum against plant pathogenic fungi, whereas a few states induced resistance. The potential induced defense component of C. globosum (Cg-2) was evaluated agains...

Sheath blight disease caused by Rhizoctonia solani Kuhn (teleomorph; Thanatephorus cucumeris) is a major constraint in rice production. Among the different anastomosis groups (AGs) of Rhizoctonia solani, AG1-IA causes sheath blight of rice, which induce necrotic lesions on leaf sheaths of the infected plants. Several reports contradict the host spe...

Plant extracts are one of the best possible sources of bioactive molecules, and are being used globally as an antioxidants and natural antimicrobial compounds. In current study, Schefflera vinosa leaves extract was prepared through Soxhlet extraction procedure using methanol and chloroform as solvents. The extract was investigated for total antioxi...

An extreme temperature regime beyond desired level imposes significant stress in crop plants. The low and high temperature stresses are one of the primary constraints for plant development and yield. Finger millet, being a climate resilient crop, is a potential source of novel stress tolerant genes. In this study, functional characterization of fin...

Rice yield is affected by various biotic stresses including fungi, bacteria, viruses, parasites, nematodes, weeds and insects, posing a major threat to global food security. Therefore, one of the major objectives of rice breeders is to develop rice cultivars resistant to biotic stresses and it has been achieved to large extent through traditional a...

The rise of the most appealing genome editing technology, i.e. CRISPR/Cas9 (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat/CRISPR-associated protein 9), had stimulated researchers to exploit it for its wide implementation in several eukaryotic organisms along with crop plants. The technology has proven to be economical, easy to use and hi...

Thespesia lampas has been used as medicinal plants for centuries to treat diseases and its antimicrobial therapeutic role has been well established. However, limited information is available about its activity against phytopathogens. The current study examined the methanol and chloroform extracts of T. lampas root extracts for polyphenols (total ph...

Deeper Rooting 1 (DRO1) gene identified from a major QTL on chromosome 9 increases the root growth angle (RGA) and thus facilitates survival under drought and hence is an excellent candidate for rice improvement. Twenty-four major Indian upland and lowland genotypes including the 'yield under drought' (DTY) QTL donors were subjected to allele minin...

Thespesia lampas has been used as medicinal plants for centuries to treat diseases and its antimicrobial therapeutic role has been well established. However, limited information is available about its activity against phytopathogens. The current study examined the methanol and chloroform extracts of T. lampas root extracts for polyphenols (total ph...

Rice blast is a global threat to food security with up to 50% yield losses. Panicle blast is a more severe form of rice blast and the response of rice plant to leaf and panicle blast is distinct in different genotypes. To understand the specific response of rice in panicle blast, transcriptome analysis of blast resistant cultivar Tetep, and suscept...

Galactomannan is a polymer of high economic importance and is extracted from the seed endosperm of clusterbean (C. tetragonoloba). In the present study, we worked to reveal the stage-specific galactomannan biosynthesis and its regulation in clusterbean. Combined electron microscopy and biochemical analysis revealed high protein and gum content in R...

Chaetomium globosum Kunze is recognized as a potential biocontrol fungus against spot blotch of wheat caused by Bipolaris sorokiniana. Its molecular mechanism of biocontrol activity and the biosynthetic pathways involved have not been yet elucidated. Here, global transcriptome profiling of C. globosum strain Cg2 during interaction with B. sorokinia...

Onion (Allium cepa L.) is an important vegetable crop widely grown for diverse culinary and nutraceutical properties. Being a shallow-rooted plant, it is prone to drought. In the present study, transcriptome sequencing of drought-tolerant (1656) and drought-sensitive (1627) onion genotypes was performed to elucidate the molecular basis of different...

Clusterbean ( Cyamopsis tetragonoloba (L.) Taub.), also known as Guar is a widely cultivated dryland legume of Western India and parts of Africa. Apart from being a vegetable crop, it is also an abundant source of a natural hetero-polysaccharide called guar gum or galactomannan which is widely used in cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, food processing, sh...

Chaetomium globosum Kunze, is a ubiquitous filamentous fungus that commonly colonizes the soil and cellulose-containing substrates. The fungus has been reported to be a potential antagonist of various plant pathogens, most of which are soil borne and seed borne. Improved understanding of microbe- microbe interaction.in the rhizosphere would assist...

Jamun (Eugenia jambolana or Syzygium cuminii Skeels) is an important, large, evergreen beautiful tree of the myrtaceae family. Jamun is commonly known as java plum, black plum, jambul and Indian blackberry. It is widely consumed as fresh fruit which has considerable good nutritive value. It has high therapeutic and pharmacological properties becaus...

Disease resistance (R) genes like Pi9, Pita, Pi21, Pi54 are playing important role for broad spectrum blast resistance in rice. Development of near isogenic lines (NILs) using these type of broad spectrum genes and understanding their signalling networks is essential to cope up with highly evolving Magnaporthe oryzae strains for longer duration. He...

In vitro multiplied plants of doubled haploid line of marigold (Tagetes erecta L.) derived through ovule culture, were subjected to evaluation of genetic uniformity using SSR markers in order to evaluate their genetic stability and/or detect likely existing variations among in vitro derived plantlets. Leaf samples were taken from randomly selected...

In vitro multiplied plants of doubled haploid line of marigold (Tagetes erecta L.) derived through ovule culture, were subjected to evaluation of genetic uniformity using SSR markers in order to evaluate their genetic stability and/ or detect likely existing variations among in vitro derived plantlets. Leaf samples were taken from randomly selected...

An efficient protocol has been developed for in vitro regeneration of double haploid line of African marigold variety Local Orange derived through ovule culture. Maximum survival (85%) of leaf explant was found in the treatment comprising of Bavistin (0.2%), Ridomil (0.2%) and 8-HQC (200 ppm). The surface sterilization treatment of explants with me...

Tilletia indica is an internationally quarantined fungal pathogen causing Karnal bunt of wheat. The present study carried out that the whole genome of T. indica was sequenced and identified transposable elements, pathogenicity-related genes using a comparative genomics approach. The T. indica genome assembly size of 33.7 MB was generated using Illu...

Heat stress adversely affects wheat crop plants leading to immense yield losses. To cope up with the stress, plants respond by overexpressing stress-associated transcription factors and genes. Here, we have identified and cloned a putative heat stress-responsive gene TaHSti/Hop (Accession no. MF383198) from heat tolerant Indian bread wheat cv. C306...

Agrobacterium mediated in planta method was used to transform Indian elite wheat genotype HD2894 with herbicide-tolerant CP4-EPSPS (5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate synthase) gene. The apical meristems of germinated seeds were targeted for introgression of transgene. The obtained T1 plants were screened by spraying 1% glyphosate and only positive...

Cluster bean (Cyamopsis tetragonoloba), also known as guar, is an important industrial crop owing to its high gum content in the endosperm. Availability of sufficient genomic resources, especially, DNA markers, greatly aids genetic improvement of a crop. In this study, we identified 1859 genomic SSRs, for the first time, from 1091 scaffolds represe...

Key message Rubus ellipticus is a wild crop having less number of EST-SSR markers. First attempt was made towards the transcriptomics data analysis and generation of EST-SSR markers which were used in genetic diversity and transferability studies. Abstract Rubus ellipticus is a raspberry with yellow fruits, native to tropical and subtropical India...

Over the past few decades, heavy metal contamination in soil and water has increased due to anthropogenic activities. The higher exposure of crop plants to heavy metal stress reduces growth and yield, and affect the sustainability of agricultural production. In this regard, the use of silicon (Si) supplementation offers a promising prospect since n...

Clusterbean (C. tetragonoloba) is an important, leguminous vegetable and industrial crop with vast genetic diversity but meager genetic, cytological and genomic information. In the present study, an optimized procedure of flow cytometry was used to estimate the genome size of three clusterbean species, represented by C. tetragonoloba (cv. RGC-936)...

Nearly two decades of revolution in the area of genomics serves as the basis of present-day molecular breeding in major food crops such as rice. Here we report an open source database on two major biotic stresses of rice, named RiceMetaSysB, which provides detailed information about rice blast and bacterial blight (BB) responsive genes (RGs). Meta-...

Testing the genetic fidelity of micropropagated clones with DNA markers could curtail the losses caused by somaclonal variation in sugarcane tissue culture industry. Evaluation of 32 inter-retrotransposon amplified polymorphism (IRAP) markers and 100 inter-simple sequence repeats (ISSRs) in 47 sugarcane accessions identified 20 (8 IRAPs and 12 ISSR...

vitro regenerated doubled haploid line of Tagetes erecta L. (African marigold) derived through ovule culture using non axillary explants, were subjected to different rooting media wherein the elongated micro shoots were transferred individually to the rooting medium consisting of Half MS basal media supplemented with sucrose (60 g/l) and different...

A study was conducted on the combining ability analysis in a 11 ×11 half-diallel cross of garden pea (Pisum sativum L.). F1 hybrids (55) along with 11 parental lines were grown in randomized block design with three replications. The mean square due to GCA and SCA were highly significant for all the characters indicating the importance of additive a...

The process of plant adaptation to the environmental stresses is controlled by orchestration of complex molecular networks regulated by transcription factor (TF) genes. In the present study, JK-4(G11), CPD-433(G15) and 5433A2A03 N83(G16) recorded higher relative water content under moisture stress condition as compared to other genotypes with highe...

Under changing climatic conditions, high temperature stress is the most severe problem for the whole agriculture. Identification and utilization of crop plants which can sustain and yield better under high temperature conditions is need of the day. In this study, we established finger millet as thermotolerant crop. For this, we characterized thermo...

NBS-encoding genes play a critical role in the plant defense system. Wild relatives of crop plants are rich reservoirs of plant defense genes. Here, we performed a stringent genome-wide identification of NBS-encoding genes in three cultivated and eight wild Oryza species, representing three different genomes (AA, BB, and FF) from four continents. A...