Arshad Jamil’s research while affiliated with University of Agriculture Faisalabad and other places

Nanotechnology is an emerging approach gaining attention in the design, production, and manipulation of tiny particles ranging from 1 to 100 nm in size. Among various metal nanoparticles, Silver Nanoparticles (AgNPs) are of utmost importance due to their distinctive capabilities which can play a part as antimicrobial agents, biosensor materials, cosmetics, composite fibers, etc. As previous research concluded, numerous biotic and abiotic factors perform principal roles in evaluating the transportation, toxicity profile, and mechanism of action of AgNPs in water and soil. AgNPs when mixed into land and hydrated environments set serious health issues and environmental hazards leading to instigating stress responses in aquatic and wetland plants. These include poor growth of plant, low quality, and yield of crop due to stress responses induced by AgNPs.

The ALOG family has been identified in plants (Arabidopsis LSH1 and Oryza G1) with a conserved domain (DUF640). The regulatory role of ALOG family members has been investigated in plants like rice and Arabidopsis. However, there is a lack of substantial information regarding the evaluation of ALOG genes in soybean. There were 25 ALOG genes designated as GmLSHs) are present in the soybean genome across 14 chromosomes. Numerous segmental duplications were also identified influencing the expression of this gene family. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that the soybean ALOG family can be classified into four distinct groups. Members within the same group share similarities or display slight variations in motifs and gene structure. Evolutionary changes in GmLSHs proteins were found to be indirectly associated with diversifying positive selection, indicating that gene evolution plays a role in soybean domestication. Differential gene expression profile was observed among 23 out of the 25 GmLSHs genes across eight different tissues, with most of the GmLSHs exhibiting tissue-specific expression. In the Dongnong47 (DN47) cultivar, the gene expression at 18 days after flowering (DAF) to 55 DAF was gradually decreased. Furthermore, partial redundant expression was observed in some duplicated genes, while rest depicted functional diversity. The member of group2 were specifically expressed in roots at 12–36 days post inoculation (DPI), while group1 and 4 members were expressed in nodules at 12–36 DPI. These findings have provided new insights of the evolutionary process of ALOG gene family and also provided a strong base for future research on LHS genes.

Chemokine receptor type 4 (CXCR4) is a G protein-coupled receptor that plays an essential role in immune system function and disease processes. Our study aims to conduct a comparative structural and phylogenetic analysis of the CXCR4 protein to gain insights into its role in emerging and re-emerging diseases that impact the health of mammals. In this study, we analyzed the evolution of CXCR4 genes across a wide range of mammalian species. The phylogenetic study showed species-specific evolutionary patterns. Our analysis revealed novel insights into the evolutionary history of CXCR4, including genetic changes that may have led to functional differences in the protein. This study revealed that the structural homologous human proteins and mammalian CXCR4 shared many characteristics. We also examined the three-dimensional structure of CXCR4 and its interactions with other molecules in the cell. Our findings provide new insights into the genomic landscape of CXCR4 in the context of emerging and re-emerging diseases, which could inform the development of more effective treatments or prevention strategies. Overall, our study sheds light on the vital role of CXCR4 in mammalian health and disease, highlighting its potential as a therapeutic target for various diseases impacting human and animal health. These findings provided insight into the study of human immunological disorders by indicating that Chemokines may have activities identical to or similar to those in humans and several mammalian species.

The sucrose synthase (SS) is an important enzyme family which play a vital role in sugar metabolism to improve the fruit quality of the plants. In many plant species, the members of SS family have been investigated but the detailed information is not available in legumes particularly and Glycine max specifically. In the present study, we found thirteen SS members (GmSS1-GmSS13) in G. max genome. High conserved regions were present in the GmSS sequences that may due to the selection pressure during evolutionary events. The segmental duplication was the major factor to increase the number of GmSS family members. The identified thirteen GmSS genes were divided into Class I, Class II and Class III with variable numbers of genes in each class. The protein interaction of GmSS gave the co-expression of sucrose synthase with glucose-1-phosphate adenylyltransferase while SLAC and REL test found number of positive sites in the coding sequences of SS family members. All the GmSS family members except GmSS7 and few of class III members, were highly expressed in all the soybean tissues. The expression of the class I members decreased during seed development, whireas, the class II members expression increased during the seed developing, may involve in sugar metabolism during seed development. Solexa sequencing libraries of acidic condition (pH 4.2) stress samples showed that the expression of class I GmSS genes increased 1- to 2-folds in treated samples than control. The differential expression pattern was observed between the members of a paralogous. This study provides detailed genome-wide analysis of GmSS family in soybean that will provide new insights for future evolutionary and soybean breeding to improve the plant growth and development.

Background: Cotton is a vital fiber and cash crop in Pakistan. Genetic diversity of a germplasm play an important role for cotton breeding. One hundred and two germplasm of upland cotton were investigated for genetic divergence regarding yield related attributes using principal component analysis. The research was carried out in RCB design with 2 replications. Experiment data was recorded on various qualitative and quantitative parameters and were subjected to principal components analysis (PCA) and cluster analysis. Results: PCA result showed that only four components were considered on account of their eigenvalue greater than 1 which contributed 65% to the total variability. Score plot showed that the suncrop-6, tipu-9, TJ-max, Deebal, CRIS-543, TH-20, Tahafuz-7, Eagle, BS-80, IUB-69, BH-221, NIAB-1048, and NIAB BT-2 showed the vertex of polygon and resulted as most divergent germplasm. Similarly cluster analysis also categorized the yield related traits into 5 main cluster. Cluster-1 contain 20 germplasm, cluster-II contain 16, and cluster-III, cluster-IV, and cluster-V comprise 13, 16, and 37 germplasm, respectively. Conclusion: Based on results, it was recommended that these genetically diverse germplasm might be used as parents that could be utilized in upcoming breeding programs.

An experiment was performed to detect the genetic diversity and heat tolerance in sixty cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) genotypes at Cotton Research Station D. I. Khan during the crop Season 2016–2017 in randomized complete block design in which three replications were used. These genotypes were evaluated for various morphological [plant height (cm), monopodial branches plant−1 and sympodial branches plant−1, bolls plant−1, boll weight (g) and seed cotton yield (g plant−1)], physiological [relative cell injury percentage (RCI%) and chlorophyll content] and fiber quality traits [ginning out turn (%), fiber strength (g tex−1), micronaire value (µg inch−1), fiber length (mm) and uniformity index (%)]. Genetic analysis revealed that genotypes were containing marked phenotypic variabilities. High values of GCV, PCV, heritability and genetic advance were found for monopodial branches plant−1, boll weight, seed cotton yield plant−1, RCI%, chlorophyll contents and micronaire value. Variable trends of RCI% among the genotypes showed different levels of cell membrane thermostability. The results of RCI% indicated that Neelam-131 (32.34%), Sitara-008 (36.26%), Sitara-009 (39.89%) and Thakkar-80 (40.22%) had lower RCI% which depicted their higher cell membrane thermostability. These four genotypes were also superior in seed cotton yield having 124.12 g, 112.78 g, 102.63 g and 98.25 g plant−1 respectively. Three principle components were depicted having Eigen value > 1 and cumulative variation of 70.4% in which the contribution of individual PCs was; PC1 (48.3%), PC2 (11.3%) and PC3 (10.9%). Score plot revealed that Auriga-216, VH-Gulzar, Thakkar-80, Neelam-131, Sitara-008, BH-184, CRIS-600IR-NIBGE-7, VH-327 and FH-Noor were the most divergent genotypes and hence can be effectively utilized in the future breeding program.

A vital role of short amino acid gene family, gibberellic acid stimulated arabidopsis (GASA), has been reported in plant growth and development. Although, little information is available about these cysteine rich short proteins in different plant species and this is the first comprehensive approach to exploit available genomic data and to analyze the GASA family in G. max. The phylogenetic and sequence composition analysis distributed the 37 identified GmGASA genes into three groups. Further investigation of the tissue expression pattern, phylogenetic analysis, motif, gene structure, chromosome distributions, duplication patterns, positive-selection pressure and cis-element analysis of 37 GmGASA genes. A conserved GASA domain was found in all identified GmGASA genes and exhibited similar characteristics. The online gene expression profile based analysis of GmGASA genes reveled that these genes were highly expressed in almost all soybean parts and some have high expression in flower which indicates that GmGASA genes displayed special or distinct expression pattern among different tissues. The segmental duplication was found in five pairs from 37 GmGASA genes and was distributed on 15 different chromosomes. The Ka/Ks ratio of 5 pairs of segmentally duplicated gene indicated that after the occurrence of duplication events, the duplicated gene pairs were purified and selected after restrictive functional differentiation. This investigated study of GmGASA gene will useful to support the statement about GASA genes role during flower induction in flowering plants.