Pratap Pati

• Ph.D
• Professor at Guru Nanak Dev University

Pathogenesis-related (PR) proteins are critical defense signaling molecules induced by phytopathogens. They play a vital role in plants' defense signaling pathways and innate immunity, particularly in systemic acquired resistance (SAR), and serve as key molecular markers of plant defense. Overexpressing PR genes, such as chitinase, Thaumatin, gluca...

The electrostatic forces supported by hydrogen-bonding (H-bonding) interactions in the presence of surfactants stabilizes the microemulsions in general. It would be quite surprising to have surfactant free microemulsions (SFMEs) predominantly...

Banana holds significant economic importance as a cash crop across diverse regions around the globe. Among the many banana varieties, Grand Naine (G9) is particularly notable for its high commercial value owing to its exceptional fruit quality and adaptability for cultivation. The cultivation areas for G9 bananas are expanding each year, resulting...

Pathogenesis‐related proteins (PR), including osmotins, play a vital role in plant defense, being activated in response to diverse biotic and abiotic stresses. Despite their significance, the mechanistic insights into the role of osmotins in plant defense have not been extensively explored. The present study explores the cloning and characterizatio...

Controlled symmetry breaking for the preparation of AuAg alloy@AgBr JNPs is achieved via non-conventional top-down approach utilizing dissipative self-assembly driven by sunlight in the presence of ascorbic acid as a mild reducing agent.

Collagen is a protein that is hard to dissolve in water and many other solvents, which limits its applications. Herein, deep eutectic solvents (DESs), i.e. choline chloride : lactic acid (ChCl : LA) = 1 : 1 and ethylene glycol : zinc chloride (EG : ZnCl2) = 4 : 1, are effectively used to dissolve type I collagen under different conditions. Type I c...

This book is a comprehensive review of secondary metabolite production from plant tissue culture. The editors have compiled 12 meticulously organized chapters that provide the relevant theoretical and practical frameworks in this subject using empirical research findings. The goal of the book is to explain the rationale behind in vitro production o...

Rhodiola imbricata is a rare and endangered plant of the Trans-Himalayan region having important medicinal properties. It holds immense therapeutic value against a wide range of diseases and health problems including hypoxia, cancer, stress, anxiety, fatigue, and gastrointestinal problems. The plant which is normally propagated through seeds suffer...

Biotic and abiotic stresses impose adverse effects on plant's development, growth, and production. For the past many years, researchers are trying to understand the stress induced responses in plants and decipher strategies to produce stress tolerant crops. It has been demonstrated that molecular networks encompassing an array of genes and function...

Withania somnifera is an important medicinal plant, however, its cultivation and quality are compromised through infestation by leaf spot disease caused by the fungus, Alternaria alternata . To find suitable strategies against this disease, studies on post‐infectional changes are important. ROS are critical as they interact with other defence signa...

Increased food production to cater the need of growing population is one of the major global challenges. Currently, agro-productivity is under threat due to shrinking arable land, increased anthropogenic activities and changes in the climate leading to frequent flash floods, prolonged droughts and sudden fluctuation of temperature. Further, warm cl...

Medicinal plants have recently gained importance due to the increasing acceptance of herbal healthcare practices as they serve a plethora of pharmacological effects owing to the presence of bioactive compounds. However, this increasing demand is posing a threat to the existence of endangered species. Therefore, scientists are exploring different ap...

Main conclusion Cytochorme P450s (CYPs) play a critical role in the catalysis of secondary metabolite biosynthetic pathways. For their commercial use, various strategies for metabolic pathway engineering using CYP as a potential target have been explored. Abstract Plants produce a vast diversity of secondary metabolites which are being used to tre...

Banana is an important food crop responsible for ensuring food security, nutrition, and employment for a significant portion of the world population. It has fairly broad genetic diversity and is distributed widely across the globe. Due to its socioeconomic importance, there has been growing demand for healthy and improved planting materials of bana...

Main conclusion Manipulation of autophagic pathway represents a tremendous opportunity for designing climate-smart crops with improved yield and better adaptability to changing environment. For exploiting autophagy to its full potential, identification and comprehensive characterization of adapters/receptor complex and elucidation of its regulatory...

The development of innovative devices that enables real-time monitoring of physiological activities and environmental conditions for healthcare applications has gained momentum in recent years. However, it is still a challenge to fabricate a self-sustainable wearable device with inherent comfort, long-time wearing and electrostatic discharge (EDS)...

PurposeWithania somnifera is a widely used herb due to its multi-health benefits. There is a growing interest to improve the growth and chemical profile of this plant because a large gap exists in the supply and demand of the quality raw material. The present study focused on using organic amendments to enhance the health and quality of this herb.M...

Abiotic stresses impose a huge threat to agricultural productivity and global food security. To counter this challenge, the precise identification of the right candidate gene (s) for conferring abiotic stress tolerance without compromising the growth and yield is crucial. OsSalT is identified as a salt stress responsive gene located on SalTol QTL o...

The susceptibility of crop plants towards abiotic stresses is highly threatening to assure global food security as it results in almost 50% annual yield loss. To address this issue, several strategies like plant breeding and genetic engineering have been used by researchers from time to time. However, these approaches are not sufficient to ensure s...

Withania somnifera (L.) Dunal is a valuable medicinal plant in the Solanaceae family. It is commonly known as Ashwagandha and is widely distributed around the globe. It has multiple pharmacological properties owing to the existence of diverse secondary metabolites viz., withanolide A, withanolide D, withaferin A, and withanone. It is in great deman...

The plant root is an essential organ that participates in several biological functions such as water and nutrient uptake as well as anchorage. Besides, roots also play a critical role in conferring stress tolerance in plants. In recent years, a lot of emphasis has been given to understand the key mechanisms involved in root morphogenesis and develo...

Secondary metabolites (SMs) play crucial roles in the vital functioning of plants such as growth, development, defense, and survival via their transportation and accumulation at the required site. However, unlike primary metabolites, the transport mechanisms of SMs are not yet well explored. There exists a huge gap between the abundant presence of...

Withania somnifera (L.) Dunal is a popular medicinal herb used in traditional Ayurvedic medicines. The pharmacological properties of this plant are largely due to the presence of withanolides such as withanone, withanolide A, withanolide D and withaferin A. Among these, withaferin A has gained a lot of attention because of its anti-cancer activity...

Heavy metal (HM) stress in plants has received considerable global attention as it threatens sustainable growth in agriculture worldwide. Hence, desperate efforts have been undertaken for combating the effects of this stress in plants. Interestingly, the use of phytohormones in reducing the impact of HM toxicity has gained much momentum in the rece...

Withania somnifera (L.) Dunal is an important medicinal plant that has gained a lot of attention since ancient times due to its immense pharmaceutical potential. Scientific validations of its therapeutic potential against many diseases have immensely increased its demand in the domestic and international market. Thus, to narrow down the huge gap be...

Plants remodel their root architecture in response to a salinity stress stimulus. This process is regulated by an array of factors including phytohormones, particularly auxin. In the present study, in order to better understand the mechanisms involved in salinity stress adaptation in rice, we compared two contrasting rice cultivars—Luna Suvarna, a...

Tropane alkaloids (TAs) are valuable secondary metabolites widely distributed in plants under natural conditions. All TAs contain a unique bicyclic tropane ring system. Several tropane alkaloids have medicinal value; e.g., atropine is used to treat certain types of nerve agents, reduces rigidity in Parkinsonism, and can be used as an antidote to po...

Withania somnifera (L.) Dunal, commonly known as Ashwagandha, is a high value medicinal plant of the family Solanaceae. Besides the drier parts of India, it also grows up to a hight of 1,700 meters in Himalayan region (mainly Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Jammu & Kashmir). It possesses a wide array of health benefits due to the presence of seve...

Withania somnifera (L.) Dunal is an important medicinal plant that has gained a lot of attention since ancient times due to its immense pharmaceutical potential. Scientific validations of its therapeutic potential against many diseases have immensely increased its demand in the domestic and international market. Thus, to narrow down the huge gap be...

Abstract Salinity is one of the major stresses affecting rice production worldwide, and various strategies are being employed to increase salt tolerance. Recently, there has been resurgence of interest to characterize SalTol QTL harbouring number of critical genes involved in conferring salt stress tolerance in rice. The present study reports the s...

Exposure to abiotic stresses has become a major threatening factor that hurdles the sustainable growth in agriculture for fulfilling the growing food demand worldwide. A significant decrease in the production of major food crops including wheat, rice, and maize is predicted in the near future due to the combined effect of abiotic stresses and clima...

Plants are constantly under the threat of various biotic and abiotic stress conditions and to overcome these stresses, they have evolved multiple mechanisms including systematic accumulation of different phytohormones, phytoalexins and pathogenesis related (PR) proteins. PR proteins are cluster of proteins with low molecular weight which get incite...

Protein dephosphorylation is an evolutionarily conserved mechanism universally regulated by various protein phosphatases. Serine/threonine phosphatase PP2A family regulates this process in a highly coordinated manner by associating with specific regulatory subunits to form a holoenzyme. This association regulates a diverse set of abiotic sensors an...

Leaf spot disease caused by Alternaria alternata severely affects the growth and yield of a high repute medicinal plant, Withania somnifera(L.) Dunal. Thus, to substantiate the growing demand of this plant, it is critical to develop suitable strategies to combat the effects of leaf spot disease. Reactive oxygen species (ROS) modulation is one of th...

Osmotin, a pathogenesis related (PR) protein belonging to PR-5 protein family is induced in plants exposed to various biotic and abiotic stresses. To evaluate the potential involvement of Osmotin in improving resistance to early blight of potato, transgenic lines of an important processing grade potato cultivar ‘Kufri Chipsona 1’ were developed. Th...

Neuroinflammation is a major risk factor associated with the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative diseases. Conventional non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs are prescribed but their long term use is associated with adverse effects. Thus, herbal based medicines are attracting major attraction worldwide as potential therapeutic candidates. Tylophora i...

The present study focuses on development of a micropropagation protocol for true to type plants of Rhodiola imbricata, an endangered medicinal plant found in trans-Himalayan Leh-Ladakh region of India. It also aims at analyzing the pharmaceutically important secondary metabolites and antioxidant potential of in vitro and in vivo plants. Various cyt...

Heavy metal toxicity in plants lead to accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Antioxidant enzyme system is also not able to revert altered ROS homeostasis. The present study reports the heavy metal induced ROS toxicity by up-regulating the expression of key antioxidant enzyme genes through Brassinosteroids pre-soaking treatment in radish.

Background: NADPH oxidase (Nox) is a critical enzyme involved in the generation of apoplastic superoxide (O2-), a type of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and hence regulate a wide range of biological functions in many organisms. Plant Noxes are the homologs of the catalytic subunit from mammalian NADPH oxidases and are known as respiratory burst oxi...

The genus Citrus is an important group of fruit crops worldwide; belongs to family Rutaceae comprising 140 genera and 1300 species distributed throughout the world. Some of the well known fruits of citrus group are oranges, lemons, grapefruits and limes.

Aim: Rhodiola imbricata is an endangered medicinal plant of the trans-Himalayan Leh-Ladakh region belonging to the family Crassulaceae. An efficient propagation and regeneration system via direct shoot organogenesis from leaf explant and evaluation of cinnamyl alcohol (Secondary metabolite) was established in this study. Material and Methods: In vi...

Withania somnifera (L.) Dunal is one of the most reputed medicinal plants belonging to the family Solanaceae. The plant contains various steroidal lactones, alkaloids, polyphenols, flavanol glycosides, and sterols, which are responsible for its medicinal properties such as antitumor, neuroprotective, cardioprotective, antiaging, and anti-inflammato...

Withania somnifera (Ashwagandha) has recently been studied extensively for its health-supplementing and therapeutic activities against a variety of ailments. Several independent studies have experimentally demonstrated pharmaceutical potential of its active Withanolides, Withaferin A (Wi-A), Withanone (Wi-N) and Withanolide A (Wil-A). However, to p...

HPLC profiles showing quantity of withanolides (Wi-A, Wil-A and Wi-N) in leaves of W. somnifera from DW, Vcom-L and Vcom-T pre-soakings at 40% Vcom, with (Vcom+Vcom-L group) and without (Vcom group) Vcom-L application. (TIF)

HPLC profiles showing quantity of withanolides (Wi-A, Wil-A and Wi-N) in leaves of W. somnifera from DW, Vcom-L and Vcom-T pre-soakings at 60% Vcom, with (Vcom+Vcom-L group) and without (Vcom group) Vcom-L application. (TIF)

Schematic diagrams showing components and organization of Vcom-L collection unit. (TIF)

HPLC profiles showing quantity of withanolides (Wi-A, Wil-A and Wi-N) in leaves of W. somnifera from DW, Vcom-L and Vcom-T pre-soakings at 0% Vcom, with (Vcom+Vcom-L group) and without (Vcom group) Vcom-L application. (TIF)

HPLC profiles showing the standards of HPLC analysis. (TIF)

Salinity stress is one of the major constraints for growth and survival of plants that affects rice productivity worldwide. Hence, in the present study, roots of two contrasting salinity sensitive cultivars, IR64 (IR64, salt sensitive) and Luna Suvarna (LS, salt tolerant) were compared with regard to the levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS) to d...

NADPH oxidase (NOX) is a key enzyme involved in the production of apoplastic superoxide (O2- ), a type of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Plant Noxes are the homologs of mammalian NADPH oxidase’s catalytic subunit and are documented as respiratory burst oxidase homologs (Rbohs). A number of studies have reported their diverse functions in combating...

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Plant NADPH oxidases also known as respiratory burst oxidase homologs (Rbohs) are a family of membrane-bound enzymes that play diverse roles in the defense response and morphogenetic processes via regulated generation of reactive oxygen species. Rbohs are associated with a variety of functions, although the reason for this is not clear. To evaluate...

Plant secondary metabolites comprise a diverse variety of organic compounds that facilitates defense response against various biotic and abiotic factors present in the environment. Many of these secondary metabolites are used in pharmaceutical, food, confectionary, cosmetics, insecticide, rubber, and agrochemical industries. In the last two decades...

Rice is an important staple crop as it feeds about a half of the earth’s population. It is known to be sensitive to a range of abiotic stresses which result in significant decline in crop productivity. Recently, the use of phytohormones for abiotic stress amelioration has generated considerable interest. Plants adapt to various environmental stress...

In this study, two xylanase genes (GH10 and GH11) derived from Malbranchea cinnamomea, designated as XYN10A_MALCI and XYN11A_MALCI, respectively, were expressed in Pichia pastoris X33. The maximum level of xylanase expression was found to be 24.3U/ml for rXYN10A_MALCI and 573.32U/ml for rXYN11A_MALCI. The purified recombinant rXYN11A_MALCI was stab...

Pathogenesis related (PR) proteins are low molecular weight family of proteins induced in plants under various biotic and abiotic stresses. They play an important role in plant-defense mechanism. PRs have wide range of functions, acting as hydrolases, peroxidases, chitinases, anti-fungal, protease inhibitors etc. In the present study, an attempt ha...

Percentage similarity between AtPRs and OsPRs. (DOCX)

Pearson correlation analysis for gene lengths of AtPRs and OsPRs. (TIFF)

CAREs along with their function conserved in both AtPRs and OsPRs; unique in AtPRs and unique in OsPRs. (DOCX)

Withania somnifera is a high value medicinal plant of the family Solanaceae. It is known for its anti-tumour, anti-stress, anti-aging, cardio-protective, neuro-protective and anti-inflammatory properties. Its pharmaceutical properties are attributed to a wide range of secondary metabolites, such as steroidal lactones, alkaloids, glycowithanolides,...

This study deals with in vitro-induced mutagenesis and selection of Phytophthora tolerant lines of Citrus jambhiri and their regeneration. For in vitro-induced mutagenesis, cotyledons were treated with ethyl methane sulfonate (EMS) 100, 200 and 300 mm for different time durations viz. 1, 3, 6 and 9 hr. Callus cultures were established from EMS trea...

Rice is an important cereal crop responsible for world's food security. The sensitivity of rice plants toward a range of abiotic stresses is a prime challenge for its overall growth and productivity. Among these, salinity is a major stress which results in a significant loss of global rice yield annually. For finding straightforward and strict futu...

Withania somnifera is a high value medicinal plant which is used against large number of ailments. The medicinal properties of the plant attributes to a wide array of important secondary metabolites. The plant is predominantly infected with leaf spot pathogen Alternaria alternata, which leads to substantial biodeterioration of pharmaceutically impo...

Protein yield and number of spots observed. (DOCX)

Details of primers used for quantitative RT-PCR. (DOCX)

MALDI data obtained from MASCOT search. (PDF)

Environmental constraints, such as biotic and abiotic stresses limit plant growth and developmental processes. Plants, being sessile in nature, have evolved various adaptive mechanisms that allow them to alter their growth and development under different stress conditions. Phytohormones play a central role in readjusting the cellular steady-state l...

Withania somnifera is a highly valued medicinal plant in traditional home medicine and is known for a wide range of bioactivities. Its commercial cultivation is adversely affected by poor seed viability and germination. Infestation by various pests and pathogens, survival under unfavourable environmental conditions, narrow genetic base, and meager...

Aims: The present work investigates the implication of leaf spot disease on the antioxidant potentials and commercial value of pharmaceutically important constituents of Withania somnifera, a high valued medicinal plant. Methods and results: Leaf spot disease was induced in W. somnifera by inoculating Alternaria alternata (Fr.) Keiss. pathogen....

Salinity stress is one of the major environmental challenges which adversely affects plant growth and productivity. The acquisition of salinity stress tolerance has been an interesting area of investigation for plant abiotic stress management. Recently, we investigated the interdependency of reactive oxygen species (ROS) generating and scavenging s...

Background: Salinity stress is a major constrain in the global rice production and hence serious efforts are being undertaken towards deciphering its remedial strategies. The comparative analysis of differential response of salt sensitive and salt tolerant lines is a judicious approach to obtain essential clues towards understanding the acquisitio...

NADPH oxidase (NOX) is a critical enzyme in the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS). It catalyzes the production of apoplastic superoxide (O2−), that regulates a wide array of biological functions in different organisms. Plant Noxes are homologs of catalytic subunit of mammalian NADPH oxidase and are well-known as Respiratory burst oxidase...

Withania somnifera (L.) Dunal known as Ashwagandha is commonly used in traditional Indian medicine system. It possesses immense therapeutic value against a large number of ailments such as mental diseases, asthma, inflammation, arthritis, rheumatism, tuberculosis, and a variety of other diseases including cancer. The therapeutic potential of W. som...

Imaging Workshop at AIST, Japan

Brassinosteroids (BRs) are a class of steroidal plant hormones that play diverse roles in plant growth and developmental processes. Recently, the easy availability of biological resources, and development of new molecular tools and approaches have provided the required impetus for deeper understanding of the processes involved in BRs biosynthesis,...

Functional analyses of MADS-box transcription factors in plants have unraveled their role in major developmental programs (e.g; flowering and floral organ identity), as well as in stress-related developmental processes such as abscission, fruit ripening and senescence. Over-expression of the OsMADS26 gene in rice (Oryza sativa) has revealed a possi...

Citrus jambhiri Lush. (rough lemon) is considered a major rootstock for a number of Citrus species. Different explants were used for somatic embryogenesis: leaf, nodal, and root segments excised from in vitro seedlings, stigmas, styles, and ovaries from flower buds, nucellar tissues and cotyledons from seeds, and juice vesicles from fruits. The exp...