Plant Molecular Biology Lab

Research Interest

Our lab is engaged in understanding intricacies of abiotic stress response in the plant system and devising ways to develop climate resilient plants. It is a challenge to develop crop plants that can withstand different abiotic stresses at the field level. Tolerance towards a particular stress is a polygenic trait hence, It is very important to understand the complex network of genes and proteins in the abiotic stress response. we have been successful in characterizing various genes and identifying the mechanisms regulating them during abiotic stress in two model plants, Arabidopsis and Rice. Our goal is to understand and identify the basic molecular mechanism underneath abiotic stress signalling in the plant system.
We have extensively characterized glyoxalase pathway genes and D-Lactate Dehydrogenase from rice in our lab. Recently we have characterized the phytosulfokine receptor kinase gene family in rice and one of the members OsPSKR15 is shown to be playing important role in drought stress response via ABA dependent pathway. We are also exploring the role of long non-coding RNAs and miRNAs controlling abiotic stress responses in plants.

Current Lab members

Alumni

Research work

Characterization of PSKR gene family in plants

The major focus of this project identification and characterization of the phytosulfokine receptor (PSKR) gene family in rice. Based on the gene expression analysis we hypothesized that PSKR might play a role in abiotic stress signaling. Further, we found PSKR to be interacting with some of the ABA receptor gene family members and elucidated the involvement of PSKR in the core ABA signalling pathway. We have also showed OsPSKR15 as a positive regulator of ABA signalling. Now, we are exploring the role of PSKR in response to variety of abiotic stresses such as salinity and oxidative and also with reference to age-dependent senescence. Publications from this project are: PMID: 32701993, PMID: 34549425.

Methylglyoxl detoxification pathway in plants

In this project, we are working on the methylglyoxal (MG) detoxification pathway and its impact in abiotic stress tolerance in plants. We have shown in Arabidopsis both Ni+2 and Zn+2 dependent Glyoxalase I enzymes coexist and Zn+2 dependent Glyoxalase I plays the major role in MG detoxification and Abiotic stress tolerance. We also have established that D-Lactate Dehydrogenase (DLDH) is an integral part of the MG detoxification pathway. Heterologous expression of rice DLDH has shown to be providing multiple abiotic stress tolerance in E. coli, yeast and model plant Arabidopsis. Publications from this project are: PMID: 32732944, PMID:32453778, PMID: 29615695.