Thumballi Ganapathi

• Bhabha Atomic Research Centre

Sorghum is an important cereal crop, cultivated both in kharif and rabi seasons. Especially rabi sorghum is known for their grain quality and used exclusively for human consumption. The present study was undertaken to induce variability through physical and chemical mutagens for morphological and yield-contributing traits. A popular rabi sorghum va...

Banana is one of the most important crops grown in many parts of the world and thus contributes to the economy of many developing countries. However, with changing climatic scenario and the evolution of new pathogenic races, the cultivation of banana crops is under severe threat. Though transgenic approaches have been carried out to address such pr...

India is an agrarian country, whose economic development is vastly dependent on sustained growth and achievements in agriculture sector amid raising population, shrinking arable land and adverse effects of climate change. Current and future challenges in Indian agriculture needs to be addressed through innovative agricultural research along with ap...

Main conclusion Induced mutagenesis using embryogenic cell suspension (ECS) explants with toxin based screening is an effective tool to create non-chimeral Fusarium wilt resistant mutants in banana. Global proteomics unravel the molecular mechanism behind resistance. Abstract Race 1 of Fusarium wilt is a serious threat to Musa spp. cv.Rasthali (AA...

NAC transcription factors are known for their diverse role in plants. In this study, we have demonstrated the role of MusaATAF2, a banana NAC transcription factor, in leaf senescence. Its expression gets strongly up‐regulated during the early stress responses of drought and high salinity exposure and down‐regulated under ABA application, which sugg...

Purpose Sorghum is an important cereal crop, cultivated for food, fodder and biofuel. Mutation breeding techniques are used to create genetic variability for qualitative and quantitative traits in crop plants. The purpose of this study was to create induced variability and estimate mutagenic effectiveness and efficiency of physical and chemical mut...

Production of recombinant proteins is primarily established in cultures of mammalian, insect and bacterial cells. Concurrently, concept of using plants to produce high-value pharmaceuticals such as vaccines, antibodies, and dietary proteins have received worldwide attention. Newer technologies for plant transformation such as plastid engineering, a...

Background: Fusarium wilt disease of banana is one of the most devastating diseases and was responsible for destroying banana plantations in the late nineteenth century. Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense is the causative agent. Presently, both race 1 and 4 strains of Foc are creating havoc in the major banana-growing regions of the world. There is...

Fruit trees are important as additional sources of revenue and are important diet supplements. Besides yielding edible fruits, there are several other useful products available from these fruit trees. However, despite their significance, these plants have not been researched thoroughly for their propagation, cultivation and molecular characterizati...

Pests and pathogens restrict the production potential of many crop plants. The losses incurred due to pests and diseases are huge threatening food security. Management strategies include use of chemical pesticides which can be detrimental to human health and environment and other physical and biological methods which have serious limitations. An al...

Banana is one of the oldest cultivated plant known for its dietary and medicinal properties. Banana is grown in the tropical and subtropical regions of the world and constitutes the staple food of the people. They are classified as dessert or sweet bananas and cooking bananas or plantains depending on whether they can be eaten raw or not. Banana pl...

Background: In recent decade, researchers aim to exploit the growth regulators from natural sources due to adverse effects posed by chemical fertilizers. Ash gourd waste (peel and seeds) has been traditionally used as a green manure for increasing the soil nutrients. The role of acetoin, a major aroma compound of ash gourd (Benincasa hispida), and...

Background: In recent decade, researchers aim to exploit the growth regulators from natural sources due to adverse effects posed by chemical fertilizers. Ash gourd waste (peel and seeds) has been traditionally used as a green manure for increasing the soil nutrients. The role of acetoin, a major aroma compound of ash gourd (Benincasa hispida), and...

Banana and plantains are one of the world’s most important food crops and widely consumed by people of all age groups. Bananas are a rich source of carbohydrates, important vitamins like vitamin B and C and minerals like potassium and phosphorous. Banana is an economically important cash crop as it fetch large revenue share in the domestic and inte...

Production of recombinant proteins is primarily established in cultures of mammalian, insect, and bacterial cells. Concurrently, concept of using plants to produce high-value pharmaceuticals such as vaccines, antibodies and dietary proteins have received worldwide attention. Newer technologies for plant transformation such as plastid engineering, a...

Manipulating flavonoid biosynthesis by genetic engineering in economically important crop plants is an emerging area of importance in plant biotechnology. Banana, which is the world most important fruit crop by production volumes, is rich in proanthocyanidins. We hypothesized that by downregulating the critical proanthocyanidin synthesis branch poi...

Fusarium oxysporum is a soil borne hyphomycete that causes vascular wilts in several crop plants. A variety of remedial measures such as the use of fungicides, soil amendments and biological antagonists have proved insufficient in controlling F. oxysporum. Ever since it was first reported in banana crop, the only effective control strategy known is...

Micro RNAs (miRNAs) are a class of non-coding, short RNAs having important roles in regulation of gene expression. Although plant miRNAs have been studied in detail in some model plants, less is known about these miRNAs in important fruit plants like banana. miRNAs have pivotal roles in plant growth and development, and in responses to diverse biot...

High soil salinity constitutes a major abiotic stress and an important limiting factor in cultivation of crop plants worldwide. Here, we report the identification and characterization of a aquaporin gene, MusaPIP2;6 which is involved in salt stress signaling in banana. MusaPIP2;6 was firstly identified based on comparative analysis of stressed and...

Plant defensins are group of small, cysteine stabilized antimicrobial peptides rich in basic amino acids which inhibit growth of a multitude of phytopathogens. These defensins have been explored widely to generate transgenic crop plants resistant to varied fungal and bacterial diseases. In the present study, gene sequence coding for a seed defensin...

Fusarium wilt of banana, caused by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense (Foc), is counted among the most destructive diseases of crop plants in India. In the absence of any credible control measure to manage this disease, development of resistant cultivars is the best option. Somaclonal variations arising out of long term in vitro culture of plant tis...

In order to feed an ever-increasing world population, there is an urgent need to improve the production of staple food and fruit crops. The productivity of important food and fruit crops is constrained by numerous biotic and abiotic factors. The cultivation of banana, which is an important fruit crop, is severely threatened by Fusarium wilt disease...

WRKY transcription factors are specifically involved in the transcriptional reprogramming following incidence of abiotic or biotic stress on plants. We have previously documented a novel WRKY gene from banana, MusaWRKY71, which was inducible in response to a wide array of abiotic or biotic stress stimuli. The present work details the effects of Mus...

Water transport across cellular membranes is regulated by a family of water channel proteins known as aquaporins (AQPs). As most abiotic stresses like suboptimal temperatures, drought or salinity result in cellular dehydration, it is imperative to study the cause-effect relationship between AQPs and the cellular consequences of abiotic stress stimu...

A20/AN1 zinc finger domain containing Stress Associated Proteins (SAP) are involved in diverse stress response pathways in plants. In the present study, a novel banana SAP gene, MusaSAP1, was identified from banana EST database and was subsequently characterized by overexpression in transgenic banana plants. Expression profiling in native banana pl...

Antimicrobial peptides are a potent group of defense active molecules that have been utilized in developing resistance against a multitude of plant pathogens. Floral defensins constitute a group of cysteine-rich peptides showing potent growth inhibition of pathogenic filamentous fungi especially Fusarium oxysporum in vitro. Full length genes coding...

Dehydrins are highly hydrophilic proteins involved in playing key adaptive roles in response to abiotic stress conditions having dehydration as a common component. In the present study, a novel banana SK(3)-type dehydrin, MusaDHN-1, was identified and later characterized using transgenic banana plants to investigate its functions in abiotic stress...

Pineapple (Ananas comosus L. Merr., cv. "Queen") leaf bases were transformed with Agrobacterium tumefaciens strain EHA 105 harboring the pSF and pEFESF plasmids with soybean ferritin cDNA. Four to eight percent of the co-cultivated leaf bases produced multiple shoots 6 weeks after transfer to Murashige and Skoog's medium supplemented with α-naphtha...

WRKY transcription factor proteins play significant roles in plant stress responses. Here, we report the cloning and characterization of a novel WRKY gene, MusaWRKY71 isolated from an edible banana cultivar Musa spp. Karibale Monthan (ABB group). MusaWRKY71, initially identified using in silico approaches from an abiotic stress-related EST library,...

One of the goals of cancer chemotherapy and prevention is the discovery of compounds that are relatively selective to tumor cells and, therefore, have reduced effects on normal cell growth. In previously published studies, it was shown that certain triterpene saponins (called avicins) from a desert tree, Acacia victoriae, are selectively toxic to t...

Since time immemorial, palms have provided the people of tropical and subtropical areas with food, drink, fuel and shelter. The coconut palm in particular is popularly known as ‘Tree of life’ or ‘Kalpavriksha’. They are extensively grown in the tropics and millions of people depend on this crop for their livelihood.