Vidhu Sankar Babu

Manipal Academy of Higher Education | MAHE · Department of Plant Sciences

Tropical xero-epiphytic orchids undergo a photosynthetic mechanism called ‘Crassulacean Acid Metabolism’, a modification of Calvin–Benson cycle. This anabolic process aids in the long-term retention of organically fixed CO2, imprinting them as active sequestrators and fixers of gaseous CO2. The malate decarboxylation competence of enzymes—phosphoen...

Plant nastic movements follow unique plant behavioural patterns that synchronize with external cues. Because the foliar nastic motions of Portulaca species are solely circadian, it would be fascinating to explore whether and how melatonin governs these movements. Analyzing morphological and anatomical traits in accordance with stomatal behaviour of...

Dendrobium has been the focus of floral industries for decades. Wild Dendrobiums serve as germplasm for creating hybrids in the cut flower industry and are priced high. But, fewer reports exist on the wild tropical species of Dendrobium. The present study reports in vitro flowering in Dendrobium ovatum - an epiphytic orchid species endemic to the o...

The present study illustrates the transformation ability of two wild-type bacterial strains of Rhizobium rhizogenes (MTCC 532 and MTCC 2364) on the embryogenic callus and callus-derived plantlets of a threatened Indian orchid, Dendrobium ovatum. Co-culture of the bacterium with the explants gave marginal hairy root phenotype that failed to multiply...

Background Moscatilin is a bibenzyl derivative (stilbenoid), mainly found in Dendrobium species. This plant-derived chemical is a potential cytotoxic anticancer drug that acts against different cancer types. The present study compared the structural interactions of Moscatilin along with five clinically relevant drugs against two target proteins, vi...

Moscatilin, a bibenzyl derivative (stilbenoid), mostly found in one of the largest genera of Orchidaceae; Dendrobium has many therapeutic benefits. Its function as an anticancer agent has been widely demonstrated through many research investigations. However, the compound has not been produced in vitro to date. The present study highlights the deve...

Moscatilin (stilbenoid) is a plant-derived anticancer compound, and it has mostly been isolated from threatened wild Dendrobium species. The present study attempts to evaluate the cytotoxicity of Moscatilin on several cancer cell lines through MTT assay. Additionally, it also aims towards estimating and comparing the radiosensitivity, cell-cycle pr...

Plant-based biopreparations are reasonably priced and are devoid of viral, prion and endotoxin contaminants. However, synthesizing these natural plant products by chemical methods is quite expensive. The structural complexity of plant-derived natural products poses a challenge for chemical synthesis at a commercial scale. Failure of commercial-scal...

Metabolic pathway reconstruction and gene edits for native natural product synthesis in single plant cells are considered to be less complicated when compared to the production of non-native metabolites. Being an efficient eukaryotic system, plants encompass suitable post-translational modifications. However, slow cell division rate and heterogeneo...

The present study is intended to analyze the occurrence of potent, low produce, naturally occurring stilbenes in protoplasts of wild species and hybrids of Dendrobium. The wild species selected for the study was Dendrobium ovatum, endemic to Western Ghats of India. Protoplasts were isolated from leaves and tepal tissues of all the species and were...

T raditional herbal drugs are of high demand owing to their minimal after-action-responses unlike synthetic forms. Many of these herbs are listed endangered and are scarcely subjected to conservational measures while others remain underexploited. One such plant family which is less explored for medicinal uses is the rare species encompassing Orchid...

Phyllanthus amarus Schum. & Thonn. and Phyllanthus urinaria Linn. are valuable medicinal plants which has wide range of diversity and used in different regions of the world for the treatment of jaundice, diabetic, cancer and other important diseases. The Phllanthus species are well-known for their important bioactive lignans (phyllanthin, hypophyll...

Background & Aim: There has been an upsurge in the territory of natural products owing to their demand in treatment of human health with minimal side effects. Despite several research studies exist on plant-derived bioactives, efforts of their scale up has been limited. Minimum productivity of these economical and medicinal natural products is an i...

Orchidaceae, the second largest plant family, is the most diverse and highly evolved amongst angiosperms, and constitutes about 40% of the monocotyledonous taxa. In the orchid family, Dendrobium is the third largest genus characterized by tremendous diversity in growth habits with a broad geographical distribution. This study aims to identify the e...

DNA methylation is important molecular events which is well-maintained in most eukaryotic organism and its plays a significant role in the epigenetic control of gene expression. In plants, methylation of DNA has association with cell differentiation, chromatin inactivation, gene expression, genome defence, genome imprinting during plant growth, dev...

The improvement of plant productivity requires wide range of genetic diversity in agricultural, medicinal and aromatic plants. The use of physical energy in the field of agriculture has significant improvement in genetic diversity and agronomical characters, disease resistance and stress tolerance of different crop plants. Brinjal (Solanum melongen...

Brinjal (Solanum melongena L.) var. Mattu Gulla (MG) and var. Perampalli Gulla (PG) are unique varieties with distinct flavour cultivated in Udupi, Karnataka State, and are exposed to several biotic and abiotic stresses. An efficient and reproducible in vitro regeneration method is required to expedite the manipulation of these brinjal varieties to...

Protoplast isolation and fusion has been tried in many plant systems for understanding the growth and response of individual cells to environmental cues in vitro (Abel and Theologis 1994). Plant cells are heterogeneous in vitro as even when cultured under controlled conditions (Kinnersley and Dougall 1982). Cell wall is one of the contributing fact...

The population of Gloriosa species is gradually diminishing in Udupi district of Karnataka, due to their over exploitation for colchicine-the therapeutic alkaloid. The scattered and scant occurrence of this genus is further attributed to their seasonal and truncated seed set in nature. The present study is the first report on polymorphism studies i...

Dendrobium, the third largest genus of the family Orchidaceae, is a slow growing epiphyte. The pods have thousands of micro seeds but fail to get converted into plants in nature. Our aim was to convert the entire micro seeds to protocorm like bodies (PLBs) which in turn generates numerous micro shoots from a single pod. We observed that the pods ap...

In the present study, the seeds of brinjal (Solanum melongena L.) var. Mattu Gulla were irradiated with single exposure of He-Ne laser at different doses of 5-40 J cm(-2) and germinated aseptically. Thirty day old seedlings were harvested and the germination, growth, physiological and biochemical parameters were estimated and compared with un-irrad...

There has been a resurgence and prevalence of fever with symptoms of Chikungunya (CHIK) and increased death toll in Kerala, the southern-most state of India. The objective of this study was to develop a rapid detection method to determine the presence of CHIK- virus in the serum samples collected from febrile patients in Kerala, India. Serum specim...

Accumulation of three triterpenoids (azadirachtin-A, nimbin and salannin) and two flavonoids (quercetin and kaempferol) was analyzed in cell suspension cultures of Azadirachta indica A. Juss. By feeding cells with a sterile solution of sucrose, it was possible to sustain viability of cells in batch cultures without subculturing for 60 d. Such long-...

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