Manoj PrasadNational Institute of Plant Genome Research | NIPGR · Plant Genetics & Genomics Lab
Manoj Prasad
PhD, FAvH, FNASc, FNAAS, FIVS, FNA
About
323
Publications
152,470
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Introduction
I have been working in the area of crop genomics for more than a decade on crops like foxtail millet and tomato. We have developed novel set of markers & applied them for genetic and comparative mapping, molecular genetic diversity studies and identification of QTLs for a variety of traits in these crop species. [Citation Index: >7900+ ; h-index:50+]
For details, please visit:
http://www.nipgr.res.in/research/dr_mprasad.php
https://www.facebook.com/FoxtailMillet
Additional affiliations
December 2019 - March 2020
May 2016 - January 2017
February 2004 - present
National Instiute of Plant Genome Research
Description
- To know more about our research work, please visit our institute webpage: http://www.nipgr.res.in/research/dr_mprasad.php
Education
January 1992 - December 1998
Univesity of Calcutta
Field of study
- Botany; Rice Biotechnology
Publications
Publications (323)
Nutrients are essential components for plant growth, development, and survival, directly affecting crop yields. Ever-increasing global population has resulted into surged food demands while shrinking agricultural lands have led to soil nutrient depletion, causing deficiencies in plants and reduced yields. To bridge this gap, fertilizer applications...
Key message
Plant‐virus‐host interaction is a complex process involving several players. A constant arms race between the hosts and viruses has led to their co‐evolution. Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are important signaling molecules that regulate plant growth, development, and stress responses. Barley yellow dwarf virus (BYDV) has a wide host ran...
Nitrogen (N) is a macronutrient limiting crop productivity with varied requirements across species and genotypes. Understanding the mechanistic basis of N responsiveness by comparing contrasting genotypes could inform the development and selection of varieties with lower N demands, or inform agronomic practices to sustain yields with lower N inputs...
Millets stand out as a sustainable crop with the potential to address the issues of food insecurity and malnutrition. These small-seeded, drought-resistant cereals have adapted to survive a broad spectrum of abiotic stresses. Researchers are keen on unravelling the regulatory mechanisms that empower millets to withstand environmental adversities. T...
Key message
A recently reported Pijx gene interacts and promotes the ATPb degradation through 26 proteasomal pathways activate OsRbohC mediated ROS burst, leading to broad-spectrum rice blast resistance in seedling and panicle.
Millets gained a great attention at the global level in 2023 which is celebrated as the “International Year of Millets” to create awareness to eventually promote consumption and production. An attempt is made here to understand the cultivation and production dynamics of millets as influenced by their demand and supply. We also assess challenges and...
Key message
A total of 104 foxtail millet accessions were evaluated for 11 nutrients in three environments and 67 high-confidence marker–trait associations (MTAs) were identified. Six SNPs showed pleiotropic effect and associated with two or more nutrients, whereas 24 candidate genes were identified for 28 MTAs involving seven traits.
Abstract
Mil...
Climate change inflicts several stresses on plants, of which dehydration stress severely affects growth and productivity. C4 plants possess better adaptability to dehydration stress; however, the role of epigenetic modifications underlying this trait is unclear. Particularly, the molecular links between histone modifiers and their regulation remain...
Selective autophagy receptors play both proviral and antiviral roles during plant-virus interaction. However, little is known about the balance between such contradictory dual roles of these receptors. Tong et al. have deciphered the temporal regulation of antiviral and antiplant roles of a selective autophagy receptor, a virus-induced small peptid...
This reference is a timely compilation of studies of genome size and genetic stability of regenerated plants. It presents 13 book chapters that cover recent advancements in CRISPR/Cas-based genome editing, the use of molecular markers to analyze somaclonal variation in tissue culture, and genetic stability assessment in various plant species, inclu...
Plants control expression of their genes in a way that involves manipulating the chromatin structural dynamics in order to adapt to environmental changes and carry out developmental processes. Histone modifications like histone methylation are significant epigenetic marks which profoundly and globally modify chromatin, potentially affecting the exp...
The human population predominantly depends on plants and plant-based products for their food and nutrition. While plants are a major source of nutrients and health-promoting compounds, they also possess antinutrient factors that affect health and well-being. Global research focuses on improving important traits in plants, particularly food and nutr...
Different environmental cues lead to changes in physiology, biochemistry and molecular status of plant's growth. Till date, various genes have been accounted for their role in regulating plant development and response to abiotic stress. Excluding genes that code for a functional protein in a cell, a large chunk of the eukaryotic transcriptome consi...
In natural habitats, plants are exploited by pathogens in biotrophic or necrotrophic ways. Concurrently, plants have evolved their defense systems for rapid perception of pathogenic effectors and begin concerted cellular reprogramming pathways to confine the pathogens at the entry sites. During the reorganization of cellular signaling mechanisms fo...
ROS-mediated defence against fungal pathogens is an essential arm of plant immunity. As a counter defence, these pathogens synthesize antioxidant enzymes that scavenge the ROS produced by plants. The molecular mechanism behind the upregulation of these enzymes in fungal pathogens was unknown. A recent study by Zhang and colleagues has shed light on...
The constant battle of survival between pathogens and host plants has played a crucial role in shaping the course of their co-evolution. However, the major determinants of the outcome of this ongoing arms race are the effectors secreted by pathogens into the host cells. These effectors perturb the defense responses of plants to promote their succes...
Osmotic stress limits plant growth and productivity. The downstream signaling components involved in osmotic adjustments are well known, but our knowledge of the perception of osmotic stress is far too limited. Wang et al. have recently identified a lesser-known mechanism of bimolecular condensation that underlies osmotic stress perception in plant...
Drought stress affects the growth and productivity of plants, where C4 plants can advantageously perceive and respond to the stress for their survival and reproduction. Epigenetic modifications play a prominent role in conferring drought tolerance in C4 plants; however, the molecular links between histone modifiers and their regulation are unclear....
This chapter focuses on the importance of foxtail millet and the desirable traits that owe it to become a sustainable crop for farming practices. Further, it emphasizes its origin, nutritional amenability, genomic approaches, and future thrusts that render a new shift in considering the foxtail millet as a model crop in the grass family.
Global population is expected to cross 11 billion by the turn of the century, which has put immense pressure on the existing agricultural systems worldwide. This is complicated by gradually decreasing productivity and acreage as a result of climate change in addition to ever-increasing input costs of resource hungry staple crops like rice, wheat, a...
Foxtail millet (Setaria italica L.) has emerged as a model system to understand its adaptation to environmental stresses in the past decade. However, studies on understanding the molecular mechanism underlying the adaptation to dehydration stress and the regulatory network involved in the process remain elusive. In the present study, RNA-seq was pe...
High temperature-induced crop failures are prominent nowadays in major staples, including rice, wheat, and maize; however, crops such as foxtail millet (Setaria italica) are resilient to temperature stress. In this study, a novel small heat shock protein of foxtail millet, SisHSP21.9, is identified and characterized for its role in conferring toler...
Key Message
The 5M approach can be applied to understand genetic complexity underlying nutritional traits of minor millets. It will help to systematically identify genomic regions/candidate genes imprinting metabolite profiles.
Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is the transfer of genetic material between organisms. It has been known for some time that HGT in eukaryotes is not a rare phenomenon. A recent study by Ma et al. has shown that HGT has played a crucial role in shaping the evolution of land plants.
Millets constitute a significant proportion of underutilized grasses and are well known for their climate resilience as well as excellent nutritional profiles. Among millets, foxtail millet (Setaria italica) and its wild relative green foxtail (S. viridis) are collectively regarded as models for studying broad-spectrum traits, including abiotic str...
Foxtail millet (Setaria italica L.), a millet with a smaller genome and shorter life cycle, growing in arid and semi-arid areas, is severely affected by salt stress with reduced biomass and yield. In this study, we report that salt stress poses deleterious effects on foxtail millet and in response foxtail millet shows flexibility in terms of decarb...
Rising temperatures pose a threat to agriculture in the present times. Salicylic acid (SA) accumulation and signaling is repressed at high temperatures leading to a compromise in plant immunity against pathogens. The mechanism behind this suppression was unknown. Recent evidence from Kim et al. suggests that CBP60g transcription is the key thermose...
Viruses are acellular pathogens that cause severe infections in plants, resulting in worldwide crop losses every year. The lack of chemical agents to control viral diseases exacerbates the situation. Thus, to devise proper management strategies, it is important that the defense mechanisms of plants against viruses are understood. Resistance (R) gen...
One of the oldest domesticated crops, foxtail millet (Setaria italica (L.) P. Beauv.) is known for its enormous seed production and ability to grow in unfavourable agro-economic conditions. This understudied diploid panicoid crop plant which performs C4 type of photosynthesis, contains approximately seven folds higher proteins with macro and micro-...
DNA methylation is a dynamic epigenetic mechanism that plays a significant role in gene expression and also maintains chromatin stability. The process is conserved in both plants and animals, and crucial for development and stress responses. Differential DNA methylation during adverse environmental conditions or pathogen attack facilitates the sele...
Tomato leaf curl New Delhi virus (ToLCNDV) is a devastating plant pathogen which causes significant losses in tomato yield. According to previous reports, proteins of geminiviruses like βC1 of Cotton leaf curl Multan virus and C1 of Tomato leaf curl Yunnan virus are degraded by the autophagy pathway. There are no reports on the role of autophagy in...
Under field conditions, plants are subjected to a wide array of biotic and abiotic stresses. These are detrimental to the survival of plants and adversely affects global crop productivity. Changing climate has led to elevated temperatures and unpredicted whether patterns across the world leading to suboptimal crop performance. This is coupled by th...
Accelerated crop growth strategy innovations are required as we reach saturation peaks regarding the productivity of major food crops. Speed breeding (SB) is one of the most promising technologies adopted for this purpose. SB hastens crop production by reducing plant growth and development, breeding time and swift generation advancement. Prolonged...
COVID-19 has posed a severe challenge on food security by limiting access to food for the marginally placed population. While access to food is a challenge, access to nutritional food is a greater challenge to the population. The present-day foods are not sufficient to meet the nutritional requirements of the human body. In a pandemic condition, pr...
The Sw5 gene cluster furnishes robust resistance to Tomato spotted wilt virus in tomato, which has led to its widespread applicability in agriculture. Among the five orthologs, Sw5b functions as a resistance gene against a broad-spectrum Tospovirus and is linked with Tospovirus resistance. However, its paralog, Sw5a, has been recently implicated in...
Key message
Small RNAs have emerged as key players of gene expression regulation. Several lines of evidences highlight their role in modulating high temperature stress responsiveness in plants.
Abstract
Throughout their life cycle, plants have to regulate their gene expression at various developmental phases, physiological changes, and in response...
Kodo millet (Paspalum scrobiculatum L.) is a small millet species known for its excellent nutritional and climate-resilient traits. To understand the genes and pathways underlying dehydration stress tolerance of kodo millet, the transcriptome of cultivar ‘CO3’ subjected to dehydration stress (0 h, 3 h, and 6 h) was sequenced. The study generated 23...
Introduction
N responsiveness is the capacity to perceive and induce morpho-physiological adaptation to external and internal Nitrogen (N). Crop productivity is propelled by N fertilizer and requires the breeding/selection of cultivars with intrinsically high N responsiveness. This trait has many advantages in being more meaningful in commercial/en...
Key message
The role of miRNAs during viral pathogenesis is poorly understood in plants. Here, we demonstrate a miRNA/target module that acts as a susceptibility factor during ToLCNDV infection.
Abstract
Tomato leaf curl New Delhi virus (ToLCNDV) is a devastating pathogen that causes huge crop loss. It is spreading to new geographical locations at...
Global warming and its subsequent consequences are continuously alarming us to explore alternative food sources and swift the pace of designing climate smart existing staple food crops. Being an underutilized crop, pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum) and foxtail millet (Setaria italica L.) are well known for their exceptional environmental stress tol...
The current pandemic caused due to SARS-CoV-2 has considerable damage to human life. The socioeconomic status of nations around the world has been challenged resulting in the loss of millions of jobs. It is important to understand the biology of the virus to devise appropriate strategies and therapeutics against it. Considering its genetic similari...
The mode of growth and development of plants does not allow them to change their habitat upon stress imposition. Through the course of evolution, plants have acquired complex molecular pathways to deal with abiotic and biotic factors to ensure their survival. The changing climatic conditions have led to unprecedented weather patterns resulting in i...
Key message
Improving the nutritional content of graminaceous crops is imperative to ensure nutritional security, wherein omics approaches play pivotal roles in dissecting this complex trait and contributing to trait improvement.
Abstract
Micronutrients regulate the metabolic processes to ensure the normal functioning of the biological system in a...
Key message
The ‘big data’ in plant breeding refers to the cumulative genotyping and phenotyping information obtained from either a series of experimental sets or generated from a large number of accessions. Recent study supports the employment of big data for enhancing the accuracy of complex trait prediction during hybrid breeding of crop plants.
Global climate change has emerged as the utmost environmental threat for agriculture. To maintain a sustainable food supply, climate-resilient high-yielding crop plants need to be developed. Over the last decade, understanding the complexity of genotype underlying agronomic traits has prompted the integrated application of various omics tools to ad...
Significance
Tomato leaf curl New Delhi virus (ToLCNDV) infection causes severe losses in tomato yield worldwide. Lack of information on resistance ( R ) genes against ToLCNDV has considerably retarded the pace of crop improvement against this rapidly spreading pathogen. Here, we report an effective defense strategy deployed by a resistant tomato c...
Evidence suggests that horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is relatively common in eukaryotes, contrary to what was previously believed. For example, insects that feed on complex sugars and neutralize, degrade, and sequester toxic secondary metabolites have recently been shown to benefit by acquiring genes through HGT.
Being sessile in nature, plants cannot overlook the incursion of unfavorable environmental conditions , including heat and drought. Heat and drought severely affect plant growth, development, reproduction and therefore productivity which poses a severe threat to global food security. Plants respond to these hostile environmental circumstances by re...
Good leadership is important for the efficient functioning of an organization. PhD and postdoctoral research is a mentally challenging job, and a good mentor must be able to both treat students with compassion and provide motivation. Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has resulted in the decline of the mental health of a large fraction of mentees.
Key message
Analysis of autophagy-related genes in tomato shows the involvement of SlATG18f in leaf curl disease tolerance and a CAPS marker developed from this gene demonstrates its usefulness in marker-assisted selection.
Abstract
Autophagy is a highly conserved catabolic process regulating cellular homeostasis and adaptation to different biotic...
Viruses are obligate pathogens that cause a wide range of diseases across all kingdoms of life. They have a colossal impact on the economy and healthcare infrastructure world-wide. Plants and animals have developed sophisticated molecular mechanisms to defend themselves against viruses and viruses in turn hijack host mechanisms to ensure their surv...
Ubiquitination, a post-translational modification, plays a crucial role in various aspects of plant development and stress responses. Protein degradation by ubiquitination is well established and ubiquitin is the main underlying component directing the turnover of proteins. Recent reports have also revealed the non-proteolytic roles of ubiquitinati...
Several crops, including millets with immense nutritional and therapeutic values, were once a part of our regular diet. However, due to domestication and selection pressures, many of them had become marginally cultivated crops confined to a particular region, race, or locality. Millets are a perfect example of neglected species that have the potent...
In the present study, genes encoding for six major classes of enzymatic antioxidants, namely superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), glutathione reductase (GR), Peroxidase (Prx) and glutathione S-transferase (GST) are identified in tomato. Their expression was studied in tomato cultivars contrastingly tolerant to ToLCNDV during virus infection...
‘Small millets’ is a generic term that includes all the millets except pearl millet and sorghum. These small or minor millets constitute eleven species that are marginally cultivated and consumed worldwide. These small millets possess excellent agronomic-, climate-resilient, and nutritional traits, although they lack popularity. Small millets withs...
Starch biosynthesis is an important process in plants as starch serves as a source of carbon and energy. In cereals, starch is the predominant constituent of the grains that provide carbohydrates in food and feed. Given its importance, the biosynthesis and accumulation of starch have been well studied in major cereals. However, in millets, no such...
Some pri-miRNAs can code for short peptides called micropeptides (miPEPs) and it has been suggested that these peptides positively regulate the accumulation of their associated miRNAs. Recent data further support this model and point towards the potential for miPEPs to be used in the agricultural sector to improve crop agronomic traits.
Coronavirus disease 2019 was first reported from Wuhan district of China and has spread to 210 countries across the world claiming over 97,602 human lives as on 10 April 2020 by 21:06 pm. Currently, there is no specific treatment for this virus and the treatment is mainly relied on controlling symptoms. Here we discuss our current understanding of...
Green revolution has boosted crop yields by the development of varieties which rely on high fertilizer application. Since then, higher productivity has largely witnessed excessive nitrogen (N) fertilizer application resulting in many environmentally and agronomically unsustainable consequences. One possible solution to this problem is to develop va...
Protein phosphorylation/dephosphorylation has been established as a central mechanism of cellular process regulation. Protein phosphatase (PPase) catalyzes reverse phosphorylation of signaling proteins, which are phosphorylated by a specific protein kinase (PK). Both PKs and PPases were initially reported and extensively studied in animal system; r...
Main conclusion:
Present review describes the molecular tools and strategies deployed in the trait discovery and improvement of major crops. The prospects and challenges associated with these approaches are discussed. Crop improvement relies on modulating the genes and genomic regions underlying key traits, either directly or indirectly. Direct ap...
Food security is an ongoing problem, and current staple foods are not sufficient to overcome challenges such as the present COVID-19 pandemic. We propose here that small millets have the potential to become new staple crops, especially in hunger hotspots. Currently, the absence of intensification of millet farming, lack of deployment of genetic too...
The exponential spread of Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) emphasizes the immediate need for effective antiviral drugs and vaccines that could control and prevent the spread of this pandemic. Several new and repurposed drugs are being tested for their effectiveness in the treatment regime, and the development of vaccines...
COVID-19 caused by SARS-CoV-2 has already infected more than 6. 3 million people worldwide as of 1st June 2020 and caused a global medical emergency. Healthcare professionals have been struggling to devise appropriate therapeutic strategies against the virus mainly due to the diverse range of symptoms and multiple-organ failure in infected patients...
Iron (Fe) is essential for plant growth and therefore plays a key role in influencing crop productivity worldwide. Apart from its central role in chlorophyll biosynthesis and oxidative phosphorylation (electron transfer), it is an important constituent of many enzymes involved in primary metabolism. Fe has different accessibilities to the roots in...
Foxtail millet is one among the earliest cultivated and climate-resilient crop species with an immense nutritional profile. They are adapted to grow under a wide range of harsh environmental conditions ranging from high temperature to drought and salinity. It does not demand proper irrigation, artificial soil nutrients or insecticide. But they are...
COVID-19 caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is devastative to the humankind for which neither vaccines nor precise therapeutic molecules for treatment are identified. The search for new drugs and repurposing of existing drugs are being performed; however, at the same time, research on plants to identify novel the...
RNA helicases are omnipresent plant proteins across all kingdoms and have been demonstrated to play an essential role in all cellular processes involving nucleic acids. Currently, these proteins emerged as a new tool for plant molecular biologists to modulate plant stress responses. Here, we review the crucial role of RNA helicases triggered by bio...
Tomato yellow leaf curl virus (TYLCV) is one of the most studied plant viral pathogens because it is the most damaging virus for global tomato production. In order to combat this global threat, it is important that we understand the biology of TYLCV and devise management approaches. The prime objective of this review is to highlight management stra...
Key message:
A simple and robust Agrobacterium-mediated gene expression system in the C4 panicoid model crop, foxtail millet has been developed with up to 27 % transformation efficiency. Foxtail millet (Setaria italica L.) is a model crop to study C4 photosynthesis, abiotic stress tolerance, and bioenergy traits. Advances in molecular genetics and...
Genetic diversity provides foundation for plant breeding and genetic research. As part of the 3K Rice Genome (3KRG) Project, over 3000 rice genomes were recently sequenced. We added four Indian rice accessions to it and made a panel of 3004 accessions. However, large set of germplasms are difficult to preserve and evaluate. Construction of core and...
Fertiliser nitrogen (N) drives crop yields and requires the breeding and selection of cultivars that are inherently highly N responsive. For major cereal crops such as wheat ( Triticum aestivum L.) breeding over time has led to enhanced N use in modern cultivars however there remains a gap in understanding the N responsiveness of minor cereals grai...
The present research was focused in the development of photosynthetically efficient (PhE) and non-lodging mutants by utilizing ethyl methane sulphonate (EMS) and gamma radiation in the kodomillet variety CO 3, prone to lodging. Striking variations in a number of anatomical characteristics of leaf anatomy for PhE and culm thickness for lodging resis...
Aquaporins are pore-forming transmembrane proteins that facilitate the movement of water and many other small neutral solutes across the cells and intracellular compartments. Plants exhibits high diversity in aquaporin isoforms and broadly classified into five different subfamilies on the basis of phylogenetic distribution and subcellular occurrenc...
Optimization of biological nitrogen (N) use is instrumental in ensuring higher crop yields and preventing environmental degradation due to excessive N fertilizer application. Furthermore, understanding how genetic differences differentially influence N remobilization into seeds under contrasting nitrogen nutrition regimes is crucial to our understa...
Successful infection of a pathogen in its host plant depends on the complex molecular
interplay between host and the invading microbe. Plant-microbe interactions are primarily governed by signal interchange amid both the organisms. Effective passage
of the pathogen into the plant system requires the circumvention of signal detection
mechanisms and...