Sumita Kachhwaha

University of Rajasthan · Department of Botany

This study investigated the effect of various levels of OH-MWCNTs mediated seed priming on germination, growth, and biochemical responses of Indian mustard (Brassica juncea (L.) Czern. & Coss.). Germination efficiency declined significantly up to 33.8% with increasing concentration of OH-MWCNT; however, other growth characteristics including seedli...

The present study is aimed to study the effect of SiO2 nanoparticles on in vitro morphogenesis and secondary metabolite biosynthesis potential of Stevia rebaudiana in solid and liquid culture media. Significant variations were recorded (in all the parameters) between plants regenerated on solid and liquid media, while no uniform pattern was obtaine...

The agricultural practices of breeding, farm management and cultivation have improved production, to a great extent, in order to meet the food demands of a growing population. However, the newer challenges of climate change, global warming, and nutritional quality improvement will have to be addressed under a new scenario. Plant biotechnology has e...

Nanotechnological interventions have extensively been used as an efficient non-invasive approach in agriculture for disease protection, to improve yield and many more. The use of engineered nanomaterials (like metal-oxide nanoparticles) as fertilizers,pesticides, carriers for genetic material/RNA/protein, sensors for detection of contaminants and t...

Stevia rebaudiana (Bert.) Bertoni, commonly called “sweet leaf” is a medicinally and industrially important plant known to be rich in zero-calorie natural sweetening compound(s) known as “steviol glycosides”. However, due to its poor seed germination and slow vegetative propagation, it has become rather difficult to meet the increasing global deman...

In recent years, there has been a lot of attention in the use of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) in farming. This study is aimed to see the effect of MWCNTs at various concentrations such as 30, 60, 90, 120, and 150 parts per million(ppm) and their impact on antioxidant activities including CAT (Cat-alase), SOD (Superoxide dismutase), POD (P...

Gene encoding enzyme based EST–SSR markers are more potent or functional marker system to evaluate astounding genetic and structural differentiation in plants. It is very useful in shaping divergences in metabolic fingerprinting, ecological interactions, conservation and adaptation among plants. Therefore, gene encoding enzyme mediated EST–SSR mark...

Gene encoding enzyme based EST-SSR markers are more potent or functional marker system to evaluate astounding genetic and structural differentiation in plants. It is very useful in shaping divergences in metabolic fingerprinting, ecological interactions, conservation and adaptation among plants. Therefore, gene encoding enzyme mediated EST-SSR mark...

Background Capsicum or chilli is an important crop in India which exhibits immense structural and genetic variations reflecting their intra- and inter-specific relationships. The aim of this study was to establish relationships amongst 54 Capsicum accessions through analysis of genetic and population structure using ISSR markers. Results Out of 19...

Phenolic compounds are important bioactive components in plant kingdoms with ubiquitous distribution amid immense structural diversity. They are indispensable in developmental and physiological stages of a plant besides having specific response in protection, adaptability, environmental and climatic resilience. In the present study, total phenolic...

The present study demonstrates the effect of seed priming with carbon nanotubes and silicon dioxide nanoparticles on field performance of Indian mustard (Brassica juncea var. NRCDR 2) crop. A randomized block design study was conducted in research fields in which 3 groups of nano-primed seeds were sown in three replications. Two groups comprised tr...

Trasncscriptome sequencing of leaves (WcL) and roots (WcR) of micropropagated W. coagulans plantlets was done to identify the putative gens involved in the withanolide biosynthesis under in vitro growth conditions, which produced 8.08 and 6.35 GB of raw reads, assembled into 292,074 and 16,474 high quality (HQ) reads, out of which 267,119 and 15,75...

The present era has witnessed a new dawn in technology innovations with the entry and use of nanomaterials in the industries and in the products used and to be used in day-to-day life creating a huge possibility of ending up in the food chain. Several studies in the past has highlighted toxicity of nanomaterials due to their size. However, we canno...

Moringa oleifera Lam. (MO), a fast-growing medium-sized tree, is extensively grown in many countries in Asia, North and South America, Africa, Europe, and Australia/Oceania with a semi-arid climate. The miracle MO has a wide range of culinary, nutraceutical, pharmacological and phytochemical properties and is one of the most extensively researched...

Lead (Pb) toxicity due to accumulation in Pennisetum glaucum, Eleusine coracana and Avena sativa was investigated. Seeds were grown on MS medium supplemented with 0 - 40 mg/l Pb and their response was noted after 15 days of germination. Accumulation of Pb in all the 3 species increased with increasing Pb, and maximum accumulation (91.3 ± 1.8 mg/l)...

An efficient and reproducible protocol for Agrobacterium tumefaciens mediated genetic transformation was developed for kodo millet (Paspalum scrobiculatum L.) by optimizing various parameters. Agrobacterium strains EHA 105 and LBA 4404 harboring plasmids pCNL 56 and pCAMBIA 2300, respectively, provided the highest transformation efficiency. Additio...

Withania coagulans (Stocks) Dunal commonly known as paneerbandh due to its milk coagulating properties, is a widely used medicinal herb, and micropropagated plants of the plant to produce some novel withanolides. Trasncscriptome sequencing of leaves and roots of micropropagated plants of W. coagulans assembled total 8.08 and 6.35 GB of raw reads in...

An efficient method for enhanced uptake of nanoparticles in wheat has been developed in the present study. Artificial humid environment was created through foliar spray around the leaves, followed by foliar exposure to CuO NPs after 5–30 min of foliar water spray during daytime (∼1 pm), and their effect on stomatal behavior were noted. Foliar water...

The word “tree” was inadvertently deleted from end of the title of this article as published.

Background: R language is highly cited for QSAR model generation because of its capacity to solve statistical modelling problems but gets negligible credit for its potential to work as a complete tool for cheminformatics. The vision of the work is to boost the confidence in R for developing a structure-based computer-aided drug-designing pipeline u...

An efficient protocol for physico-chemical characterization of gum exudates collected from the drumstick tree (Moringa oleifera Lam.) has been reported in the present study. Extraction of gum metabolites was done using a series of water, alcohol, acid, and alkali solvent systems. The gum was sparingly soluble in water at room temperature and formed...

India has a diverse range of agro-ecological conditions which support the cultivation of different rice varieties differing in the adaptation which is so important for sustainable development of rice crop. Specific ecotypes of rice adapted to diverse conditions have divergence in their morphology, physiology, biochemistry, molecular function, agron...

The synergistic effect of plant growth regulators on axillary bud proliferation for mass clonal multiplication of Moringa oleifera Lam. (vern. drumstick) has been assessed for the first time. Treatment of decoated seeds with 1% (w/v) Bavistin for 60 min, 0.33% (w/v) streptocycline for 30 min, and 0.1% (w/v) HgCl2 for 3.5 min resulted in complete re...

Environmental stress constraints like temperature, drought and salinity affect plant growth, development and productivity negatively. In maize (Zea mays L.) water-deficiency affects flowering, pollination and embryo development. Transgenic plants having drought tolerance is a priority target in maize breeding programs worldwide. Various transcripti...

With the rise in the ageing population in the last few decades, dementia has emerged as a serious global health issue. Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common type of dementia. Despite extensive drug development research, only a limited number of FDA-approved drugs are available for AD. As these drugs provide symptomatic relief only and are fre...

Being an economical and nutritional crop, Capsicum appeases people’s peppery taste and is found to be widely distributed all over the world having vast diversity. In the present study, genetic polymorphism, cross transferability (CT) and genetic diversity were examined among the 54 different accessions of Capsicum species including 49 of Capsicum a...

Finger millet [Eleusine coracana (L.) Gaertn] is an excellent food and forage crop of arid and semiarid areas in Africa and Asia. It is well adapted to drought, heat, high salinity, poor soil fertility and low pH with an efficient C4 carbon fixation mechanism for high yield potential. To normalize the target gene expression data, the identification...

Roses are well known for commercial floriculture and greatly used in the field of perfumery, soap, cosmetics, jams & jelly and essential oil production. Due to interspecific hybridization, a large number of hybrids and cultivated varieties of rose are recognized which reveals distinguishable features in flowers such as size, shape, and color. Apart...

Bioassisted synthesis provides a facile, convenient, and promising approach to produce many inorganic nanostructures. Herein, we report a rapid biosynthesis of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) using Thuja occidentalis (L.) leaf extract with an emphasis on their antibacterial and antimycotic activity. Interestingly, the synthesis of AgNPs was completed...

Citrullus colocynthis (L.) Schrad. (Cucurbitaceae) shows high levels of variation in fruit color, fruit stripe pattern, seed coat color, and size. Thirty-eight accessions of C. colocynthis plants from different parts of semi-arid Rajasthan were collected and genetic diversity was assessed using random-amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) and inter-simp...

With the boom in industrialization, there is an increase in the level of heavy metals in the soil which drastically affect the growth and development of plants. Nickel is an essential micronutrient for plant growth and development, but elevated level of Ni causes stunted growth, chlorosis, nutrient imbalance, and alterations in the defense mechanis...

Moringa oleifera Lam. (vern. Drumstick) is a mineral rich, medicinally important tree species of family Moringaceae. It has a wide range of culinary applications, and has bioremediation, nutritional and medicinal properties. Conventionally, seeds of the tree have been used as natural coagulants and flocculents in waste water treatment. Its leaves a...

Drought negatively affect plant growth, development and crop productivity. Maize (Zea mays L.) is among the highly consumed staple crop and its production is frequently impacted by water scarcity. DRE-Binding Protein 2A (zmDREB2A) play a central role in drought tolerance in maize plant and its expression level is determined by analyzing RNA-seq dat...

Metal load is an abiotic stress that becomes stronger by continual industrial production, wastage and long range transport of contaminants. It deteriorates the conditions of agricultural soil that leads to lower growth of cereals as well as decreasing nutritional value of harvested grains. Cadmium (Cd) entry by food chain also affects the health of...

Withania coagulans (Stocks) Dunal (Solanaceae), also known as ‘Panir Bandh’ is an important medicinal plant that is extensively used as a home remedy for several diseases in the Indian subcontinent. The plant possesses specific steroidal lactones known as withanolides which show high level of pharmaceutical activity against a broad spectrum of micr...

Withania coagulans (Stocks) Dunal (Solanaceae), also known as ‘Panir Bandh’ is an important medicinal plant that is extensively used as a home remedy for several diseases in the Indian subcontinent. The plant possesses specifi c steroidal lactones known as withanolides which show high level of pharmaceutical activity against a broad spectrum of mic...

Expressed sequence tags (ESTs) are important resource for gene discovery, gene expression and its regulation, molecular marker development, and comparative genomics. We procured 10000 ESTs and analyzed 267 EST-SSRs markers through computational approach. The average density was one SSR/10.45 kb or 6.4% frequency, wherein trinucleotide repeats (66.7...

Supplementary Table: Brief details of best promising hits obtained through gene ontology for ESTs having SSR which were categorized into biological process, cellular component and molecular function.

An efficient and reproducible protocol for in vitro plant regeneration and Agrobacterium‐mediated genetic transformation was developed for Eclipta alba (L.) Hassk. using nodal explants. Several parameters affecting Agrobacterium‐ mediated gene delivery were investigated and optimized. These include antibiotic concentration, preculture period, infec...

Abstract. UnTranslated Regions (UTRs) are part of messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) that do not undergo protein translation mechanism but plays an impor-tant role in translation control. Various genomic and non genomic features are responsible for controlling the translation. We have attempted to find various genomic features and their information...

Biological approaches have been amongst the most promising protocols for synthesis of nanomaterials. In this study, Cadmium sulfide nanoparticles (CdS NPs) were synthesized by incubating their precursor salts with E scherichia coli and zeta potential (ζ-potential) measurement with varying pH was carried out to evaluate stability of the colloidal di...

Cereals and millets account for staple food of the major population of the world and any stress posed on them limits their productivity. Salt stress affects seed germination and results in poor grain quality and low production. To identify the best responding cereal against variable salinity regime, the present study was undertaken. The seeds were...

The expression of five genes involved in photosynthesis was investigated under different salinity conditions in Dunaliella salina. These genes encodes ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (RuBisCo) large and small subunits, major light-harvesting chlorophyll (chl) a/b protein of photosystem II, carbonic anhydrase and adenosine tri phosph...

Common carbohydrates of distinct classes (mono, di and polysaccharides) were examined to synthesize silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) and a comparison was made about the efficacy towards synthesizing the Ag NPs and properties of the later. Six monosaccharides (L-rhamnose, xylose, arabinose, glucose, fructose and galactose), three disaccharides (sucrose...

Nanotechnology is a very promising area of research which involves the production of nanomaterials as the basic strategy. Although artificial synthesis of nanomaterials were initiated by using chemical and physical approaches, but recently the biological synthesis methods are being widely used as ecofriendly alternatives. Plant-based synthesis of n...

Abstract A large number of studies have suggested extracellular microRNAs (microRNAs in biofluids) as potential noninvasive biomarkers for pathophysiological conditions such as cancer. However, reported differentially expressed signatures of extracellular miRNAs in diseases are not uniformly consistent among studies. Here, we present "ExcellmiRDB",...

Introduction: Accumulation of reactive species higher than permissible limits in biological systems may lead to various degenerative disorders due to oxidative damage. Materials And Methods: Oxidation is a serious concern faced by the food industry causing deterioration of shelved-food quality. Antioxidant compounds like polyphenolics scavenge such...

Introduction: Accumulation of reactive species higher than permissible limits in biological systems may lead to various degenerative disorders due to oxidative damage. Materials and Methods: Oxidation is a serious concern faced by the food industry causing deterioration of shelved-food quality. Antioxidant compounds like polyphenolics scavenge such...

An efficient and reproducible protocol for in vitro plant regeneration and Agrobacterium‐mediated genetic transformation was developed for Eclipta alba (L.) Hassk. using nodal explants. Several parameters affecting Agrobacteriummediated gene delivery were investigated and optimized. These include antibiotic concentration, preculture period, infecti...

This study highlights the effect of different inorganic micronutrients like copper, cobalt, molybdenum, zinc, boron, iodine, iron and manganese in accelerating and amplifying in vitro shoot bud induction and proliferation of a medicinally important plant, Eclipta alba (L.) Hassk. Direct shoot bud induction was observed on MS fortified with Kn (2 mg...

Objective: Present work comprehensively evaluates the antioxidant capacity, total phenolic content (TPC) and total flavonoid content (TFC) of four successive extracts of various parts of Nyctanthes arbor-tristis Linn. at different concentrations using spectrophotometric assays. Methods: TPC and TFC were measured using Folin–Ciocalteu’s and aluminiu...

Several biological methods for the production of silver nanoparticles (Ag-NPs) are available due to their multiple applications. Biosynthesis of silver nanoparticles using callus extract of Capsicum annuum offers an extracellular synthesis of nanoparticles. It is eco-friendly and cost effective approach so it can be an economic and efficient altern...

Expressed sequence tags (EST) are potential source for the development of genic microsatellite markers, gene discovery, comparative genomics, and other genomic studies. In the present study, 7630 ESTs were examined from NCBI for SSR identification and characterization. A total of 263 SSRs were identified with an average density of one SSR/4.2 kb (3...

Supplementary Table: The complete details of most promising hits of gene ontology of 35 EST-SSRs given in the supplementary table.

Several biological methods for the production of silver nanoparticles (Ag-NPs) are available due to their multiple applications. Biosynthesis of silver nanoparticles using callus extract of Capsicum annuum offers an extracellular synthesis of nanoparticles. It is eco-friendly and cost effective approach so it can be an economic and efficient altern...