Tanvir Ul Hassan

Baba Ghulam Shah Badshah University | BGSB · Biotechnology

High-altitude regions like the Himalaya, where various slopes are present on a very small spatial scale, are one of the best natural laboratories for investigating how genetic diversity and population structure are distributed across altitudinal gradients. In this study, we investigate the magnitude of genetic diversity and population structure of...

Soil microbial communities, being at the interface of plant-soil feedback systems, can play a pivotal role in facilitating ecosystem response to the drivers of global environmental change, including invasive alien species (IAS). Studies evaluating the effect of plant invasion on soil microbial communities along altitudinal gradients can provide nov...

Understanding the genetic diversity and population structure of pharmaceutically important endangered plant species is crucial for their conservation and sustainable use. Despite the continuous population decline in Trillium govanianum Wall. ex D. Don, a highly prized medicinal plant endemic to the Himalaya, information regarding its conservation g...

In the ever-evolving field of drug discovery, the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) with cheminformatics has proven to be a powerful combination. Cheminformatics, which combines the principles of computer science and chemistry, is used to extract chemical information and search compound databases, while the appli...

Soil microbial communities, being situated at the interface of aboveground plant and belowground soil systems, can play a pivotal role in determining ecosystem response to the drivers of global environmental change, including invasive species. In mountains, invasive plants occuring along elevational gradients offer a unique natural experimental sys...

The best natural laboratories for studying the ecological responses of plants are high-altitude areas like the Himalaya, where many gradients coexist on a relatively small spatial scale. Here, we investigate the effect of soil physico-chemical and eco-physiological properties on the broadleaf evergreen woody shrub Rhododendron anthopogon D.Don alon...

Maize is an important food crop for humans, as well as a key component of animal feed and raw material for a variety of industrial products. In the present investigation, ten cultivars of maize (Zea mays L.) grown across the Rajouri region of Pir Panjal Himalaya were karyomorphologically characterized. All these cultivars possessed the same chromos...

In an era of global environmental change, conservation of threatened biodiversity and ecosystem restoration are formidable ecological challenges. The forest understory strata and the belowground soil environment including rhizospheric microbial communities, which are crucial for ecosystem functioning and overall forest biodiversity maintenance, hav...

Despite a wide range of nutritional and nutraceutical diversity existing within the wild germplasm of pomegranate (Punica granatum L.) that can be utilized to develop genetically superior cultivars, little research efforts have been focused on the characterization of this neglected and underutilized crop in the Himalaya. To fill this research gap,...

The Research Topic offers an updated assembly of articles assessing the genomic and epigenomic variations in health and diseases of different species of plants and animals. The recent development in methodologies and techniques, such as epigenotyping-by-sequencing, whole-exome sequencing, methylated DNA immunoprecipitation, chromatin immunoprecipit...

The application of nanoparticles in medication delivery has revolutionized the field of therapeutic biology. To improve medical efficacy, currently, drug nanocarriers are employed to control the release and stability, expand its circulation time, or protect it from cell clearance or premature breakdown. A crosslinked polymeric framework is used to...

The rhizosphere is the region around the plant roots where maximum microbial activities occur. In the rhizosphere, microorganisms’ beneficial and harmful activities affect plant growth and development. The mutualistic rhizospheric bacteria which improve plant growth and health are known as plant growth‐promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR). They are very...

Detailed examination of the protologue, herbarium, and live specimens of Ephedra kardangensis P. Sharma & P. L. Uniyal (Systematic Botany, 35:730–735, 2010) revealed that this species actually corresponds to E. gerardiana. Therefore, we report here E. kardangensis as a new synonym of E. gerardiana. Discrepancies in the description, diagnosis, and t...

Historically, and even today, discovery of new species has remained one of the primary research activities driving the discipline of taxonomy. Discovering scientifically still unknown biodiversity is critical in addressing the taxonomic impediment which is hampering our progrees to meet the challenges of global biodiversity crisis. However, in the...

Critical study of the protologue, herbarium and live specimens of Ephedra yangthangensis Prabha Sharma & Rita Singh revealed that this species actually corresponds to E. intermedia. The description of E. yangthangensis as a new species is based on phenotypically plastic characters such as nature of microsporagiophore, size of male strobili and colo...

Plants being sessile are always exposed to various environmental stresses, and to overcome these stresses, modifications at the epigenetic level can prove vital for their long-term survival. Epigenomics refers to the large-scale study of epigenetic marks on the genome, which include covalent modifications of histone tails (acetylation, methylation,...

Ethnopharmacological relevance Microorganisms are developing resistance to synthetic drugs. As a result, the search for novel antimicrobial compounds has become an urgent need. Medicinal plants are commonly used as traditional medicine and Delphinium is one of the prominent genera used in the treatment of several diseases. Aim of the study The pre...

Historically, and even today, discovery of new species has remained one of the primary research activities driving the discipline of taxonomy. Discovering scientifically still unknown biodiversity is critical in addressing the taxonomic impediment which is hampering our progrees to meet the challenges of global biodiversity crisis. However, in the...

In an era of climate change, identifying suitable habitats for ecosystem restoration is critical for conservation of globally threatened biodiversity. Here, we integrate the insights gained from ensemble modelling with the community field data on threatened Himalayan Trillium (Trillium govanianum) to identify the suitable sites for its habitat rest...

A taxonomic account of the genus Alternanthera (Amaranthaceae) in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir is presented here. The genus is represented by four species in the Union Territory i.e., Alternanthera philoxeroides Griseb., A. sessilis (L.) R.Br. ex DC., A. pungens Kunth and A. paronychioides A.St.-Hil. of which A. paronychioides and A. pu...

Arid environments face extreme risk from contemporary climate change, therefore predicting the shifts in species’ distribution range and niche breadth in these environments assumes urgent research priority. Here we report the potential distribution and predict future distribution range of two model plant species typically representing contrasting e...

Genome-editing (GE) is having a tremendous influence around the globe in the life science community. Among its versatile uses, the desired modifications of genes, and more importantly the transgene (DNA)-free approach to develop genetically modified organism (GMO), are of special interest. The recent and rapid developments in genome-editing technol...

Lichens, algae and fungi-based symbiotic associations, are sources of many important secondary metabolites, such as antibiotics, anti-inflammatory, antioxidants, and anticancer agents. Wide range of experiments based on in vivo and in vitro studies revealed that lichens are a rich treasure of anti-cancer compounds. Lichen extracts and isolated lich...

In the current era of rapid industrialization, the foremost challenge is the management of industrial wastes. Activities such as mining and industrialization spill over a large quantity of toxic waste that pollutes soil, water and air. This poses a major environmental and health challenge. The toxic heavy metals present in the soil and water are en...

The correct scientific identification of the plant material is crucial to the safety and efficacy of herbal products. Trillium govanianum Wall. ex D. Don, a pharmaceutically prized medicinal plant species endemic to the Himalaya, has been recently subjected to large-scale extraction in the wild due to increasing market demand. Consequently, adulter...

One of the fundamental questions in invasion biology is why an alien species successfully invades one region but fails to do so in another region. In this regard, the recently emerging molecular ecology tools have made it possible to understand the genetic basis of invasion success and/or failure of alien species in different regions. Here we repor...

One of the fundamental questions in invasion biology is why an alien species successfully invades one region but fails to do so in another region. In this regard, the recently emerging molecular ecology tools have made it possible to understand the genetic basis of invasion success and/or failure of alien species in different regions. Here we repor...

Plants require an enormous number of organic and inorganic substances from outside sources called nutrition. Inorganic plant requirements are obtained directly or indirectly from the soil. The important trace elements necessary in very small quantity by plants for their survival are called micronutrients. These micronutrients are involved in variou...

Images and videos of organisms recorded in the wild have relevance for biodiversity studies. With the advent of smartphones and their potential integration with microscopy, scientific documentation and recording of organisms has surged to an unprecedented scale. Here we report a novel method, developed by integration of a portable smartphone with a...

Aspicera hartigi Dalla Torre, 1889 is reported for the first time from India. A brief diagnosis and photo- graphic illustrations of the species are provided to validate this new faunal record for India from the Kashmir valley in Western Himalaya. In addition, the present study for the first time reports the feeding of Aspicera hartigi on the pollin...

Understanding of mechanistic details of Mediator functioning in plants is impeded as the knowledge of subunit organization and structure is lacking. In this study, an interaction map of Arabidopsis Mediator complex was analyzed to understand the arrangement of the subunits in the core part of the complex. Combining this interaction map with homolog...

The correct taxonomic delimitation of Nasturtium microphyllum Rchb., previously misidentified as N asturtium officinale R. Br., in the Kashmir Himalaya, India, is reported. This species differs from its closely allied N. officinale in the shape, size, and arrangement of seeds in the fruit. A detailed taxonomic account, including complete descriptio...

The present study provides an assessment of genetic variability and relationship within and between different cultivars of maize grown across the Rajouri region of the Pir Panjal Himalaya, utilizing morphological and ISSR markers. Morphological descriptors showed significant diversity among cultivars; on morphological cluster analysis, the cultivar...

In nature, polyploidy is essential for diversity of new species (maintenance and emergence). Moreover, the environment might also play a role in creating polyploids as they have been found more in extreme environments such as high-altitude, subarctic and xeric areas (Love and Love 1949; Love 1953; Hanelt 1966; Grant 1971). It has been proposed that...

Polyploidy refers to the presence of more than two genomes per somatic cell. Generally, the polyploid organism would have multiple sets of chromosomes or either the combination of chromosome sets found in same species or a closely related diploid species. Polyploid organisms can arise spontaneously by the chromosome duplication of somatic cells, or...

In terms of time, polyploidy is believed to have accompanied the evolution of plants since the last 350 million years (Vision et al. 2000; Bowers et al. 2003). Since polyploids are known as successful invaders of newly opened habitats, it is hypothesized that the major decline and extinction of gymnosperms during the late Cretaceous period (some 65...

Polyploidy has played a significant role in the evolution of higher plants (Leitch and Bennett 1997), having helped in tremendously increasing the number of species and sometimes of genera on the planet Earth. It is the most rapid method known of producing radically different but vigorous and well-adapted genotypes (Stebbins 1950); for this reason,...

Doubling of two different genomes or a single genome within a cell requires a series of genetic and genomic adjustments. Recent studies have shown that polyploid genomes may undergo rapid changes in structure and function through genetic and epigenetic variations (Osborn et al. 2003; Levy and Feldman 2004; Adams and Wendel 2005; Chen 2007; Zhang et...

To transfer a valuable character carried by a single genetic factor across a barrier of interspecific sterility.

Earlier, polyploidy was detected on the basis of only a few morphological, cytological and genetic criteria. However, it may not be correct to characterize polyploidy on the above structural basis only because the chromosome pairing behaviour is also affected by other factors (Otto 2007). Polyploids have distinct morphology as compared to their dip...

Compared to animals, polyploidy is successful in plants because their developmental processes are much simpler (Fankhauser 1945; Stebbins 1950). The actual incidence of frequency in various plant lineages has been proved difficult to determine, despite numerous attempts over the past 100 years to estimate the frequency of polyploidy in plants (Tabl...

This is the first book to present consolidated, up-to-date information regarding recent trends and future perspectives of polyploidy – a phenomenon that has played a pivotal role in the evolution of domesticated plants and a research area that has been given new impetus thanks to advances in plant biology techniques integrated with bioinformatics t...

Phosphorus is one of the essential macronutrients required in relatively large quantities by the plants for normal growth and development and to complete their life cycle. It is an important constituent of biomolecules like nucleic acids, phospholipids, enzymes and adenosine triphosphate. Phosphate signaling allows higher plants to respond and adap...

Polyploidy is known to be common in plants; indeed most of the world’s economically important crop plants are polyploids. Recent studies revealed extensive genomic changes in synthetic polyploids after genome doubling, although most of the information available is with regards to allopolyploids and little information have been generated in autopoly...

The current technique of remediation of heavy metal from contaminated soil is not cost-effective and eco-friendly. Besides, these heavy metals are recalcitrant and are not degraded like organic compounds, therefore effective clean-up requires their immobilization to reduce or remove toxicity. Phytoremediation in future will play an important role i...

The aim of the study was to evaluate the toxic and mutagenic effects of bottled purified and natural spring waters for drinking. The study presents the genotoxicologic results of drinking water samples packaged in polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles. Genotoxic agents have the potential to interact with DNA and may cause DNA damage. Endpoints a...

The ITS1-5.8S-ITS2 region of the 18S-28S nrDNA was sequenced in 49 Vicia species and subspecies selected from nine sections of the two subgenera to resolve taxonomic contradictions. Phylogenies derived from the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) sequences strongly support the view that both Vicia faba and Vicia bithynica are distant from the Narbone...

Polyploidization is a major force that has shaped the evolution of flowering plants. Newly-generated polyploids have been used to investigate the changes that occur in genomes immediately after polyploidization. The present research programme created colchitetraploids in Phlox drummondii and followed them through different generations (C0, C1, C2,...

The most important evolutionary event in the success of commercial tea cultivation outside China in *30 countries came about by the origin of India hybrid tea in India, derived from the extensive spontaneous hybridization that took place between the Assam type tea growing in the forest regions of Assam, North-East India and China type tea introduce...

Seabuckthorn, a non-leguminous nodule bearing dioecious shrub, is a storehouse of neutraceutical, pharmaceutical and cosmetic usage. The 348 genotypes of Hippophae rhamnoides ssp. turkestanica, H. salicifolia and H. tibetana were collected from 194 locations at 46 major sites across *1,500 km from north-east to north-west Himalayas, harboring one o...

Realizing the inconsistencies that exist in the extent and nature of differentiation in the Withania somnifera genetic resources in India, the 21 cultivated and wild accessions, and the two hybrids (cultivated×wild accessions and vice versa) were investigated for morphological, cytogenetical, chemical profiling, and crossability features. Their nuc...

DNA restriction endonuclease fragment analysis was used to obtain new information on the genomic organization of ribosomal DNA (rDNA) of Brassica and allied genera. The total genomic DNA of 95 accessions of 52 species representing 16 genera was restricted with six enzymes, and the restriction fragments were probed with three ribosomal clones (pTA71...

Increasing agricultural productivity is a priority task for most developing nations. Limited resources and mounting population pressures make it essential to concentrate in the years and decades ahead on increasing agricultural production. Training has been identified as the most critical input in this endeavor. Farmers need to be trained at suitab...