Institutional Publications
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Item Decoding the functionality of plant transcription factors(Oxford University Press, 2024) Dhatterwal, Pinky; Sharma, Namisha; Prasad, ManojTranscription factors (TFs) intricately govern cellular processes and responses to external stimuli by modulating gene expressions. TFs help plants to balance the trade-off between stress tolerance and growth, thus ensuring their long-term survival in challenging environments. Understanding the factors and mechanisms that define the functionality of plant TFs is of paramount importance for unravelling the intricate regulatory networks governing development, growth, and responses to environmental stimuli in plants. The article provides a comprehensive understanding of these factors and mechanisms defining the activity of TFs. Understanding the dynamic nature of TFs has practical implications for modern molecular breeding programs, as it provides insights into how to manipulate gene expression to optimize desired traits in crops. Moreover, recent studies also report the functional duality of transcription factors, highlighting their ability to switch between activation and repression modes, this represents an important mechanism for attuning gene expression. Here we discuss what possible reasons for dual nature of TFs are and how this duality instructs the cell fate decision during development, and fine-tunes stress responses in plants, enabling them to adapt to various environmental challenges.Item Major transcription factor families at the nexus of regulating abiotic stress response in millets: a comprehensive review(Springer Nature Publishing AG, 2024) Prusty, Ankita; Panchal, Anurag; Singh, Roshan Kumar; Prasad, ManojMillets stand out as a sustainable crop with the potential to address the issues of food insecurity and malnutrition. These small-seeded, drought-resistant cereals have adapted to survive a broad spectrum of abiotic stresses. Researchers are keen on unravelling the regulatory mechanisms that empower millets to withstand environmental adversities. The aim is to leverage these identified genetic determinants from millets for enhancing the stress tolerance of major cereal crops through genetic engineering or breeding. This review sheds light on transcription factors (TFs) that govern diverse abiotic stress responses and play role in conferring tolerance to various abiotic stresses in millets. Specifically, the molecular functions and expression patterns of investigated TFs from various families, including bHLH, bZIP, DREB, HSF, MYB, NAC, NF-Y and WRKY, are comprehensively discussed. It also explores the potential of TFs in developing stress-tolerant crops, presenting a comprehensive discussion on diverse strategies for their integration.Item Genetic determinants of drought stress tolerance in Setaria(Springer, 2017) Muthamilarasan, Mehanathan; Prasad, ManojCultivated foxtail millet (Setaria italica) and its wild progenitor (S. viridis) have collectively been considered as tractable model species for studying C4 photosynthesis, stress biology, and biofuel traits. Being cultivated in arid and semiarid tropics of the world, these species are well adapted to harsh environments such as drought, heat, and salinity. This adaptation or acclimation potential of Setaria spp. has drawn research interest, and attempts have been made to dissect the molecular mechanisms of stress tolerance. Compared to other stresses, drought response has been studied extensively in S. italica and many drought-responsive genes encoding for transcription factors, signaling molecules, and enzymes have been identified and characterized. Several genome-wide studies have reported on identification of stress-responsive gene family members, and speculated on the potential for expansion and neofunctionalization of paralogs in these gene families. In this context, this chapter discusses the key genetic determinants identified for stress tolerance in S. italica and demonstrates their use in improving drought tolerance. In addition, strategies for identification of genes underlying stress tolerance are also described. Little effort has so far been made towards understanding the stress-tolerance characteristics of Setaria as compared to studies reported in other crops. Comprehensive functional studies along with the use of integrated -omics approaches are required to elucidate the genetics and genomics of stress tolerance in Setaria, as it is important to develop climate change resilient crops to meet the growing demand for food and feed.Item Drought stress responses and signal transduction in plants(Springer, 2015) Lata, Charu; Muthamilarasan, Mehanathan; Prasad, ManojNature provides all necessary components for healthy growth and development of plants in the form of air, water, light, nutrients, and soil. Any imbalance in the environmental harmony may cause stress to them. Stresses encountered by plants can broadly be categorized into biotic and abiotic stresses. Biotic stresses are mainly caused by pathogens and herbivory, whereas abiotic stresses include the threat imposed by drought, salinity, and extremes of temperature, heavy metals, and pollution. Drought stress is a major cause of yield instability in crops across diverse eco-geographic regions worldwide. A variety of biochemical, molecular, and physiological changes are manifested by plants in response to drought stress. The cellular abscisic acid (ABA) concentration increases on water deficit leading to the activation of a number of stress-responsive genes and the patterns of expression of these genes are very complex, with some genes being induced early while others respond slowly. In general, drought-responsive genes respond to salt and cold stresses as well as to exogenous ABA treatment. However, there are several genes, which express themselves in an ABA-independent manner suggesting that both ABA-dependent and -independent signal transduction cascades exist for drought stress perception, response, and adaptation. Drought stress response and adaptation in plants involves an array of pathways for signal perception, transduction, gene expression and synthesis of proteins, and other stress metabolites. Drought-responsive genes can mainly be classified into two groups. First group constitutes genes whose products provide osmotolerance and protection to plants thus directly functioning in tolerance to stress, while the second group includes genes playing a role in signal transduction as well as regulation of gene expression. This chapter summarizes the complex molecular mechanisms of drought stress response and adaptation in plants, highlighting the transcriptional regulation of stress-responsive gene expression. It also focuses on the recent advances in analyzing various stress-responsive pathways with prime emphasis on ABA-dependent and -independent pathways.Item FmTFDb: a foxtail millet transcription factors database for expediting functional genomics in millets(Springer, 2014) Bonthala, Venkata Suresh; Muthamilarasan, Mehanathan; Roy, Riti; Prasad, ManojFoxtail millet has recently been regarded as a model crop for studying the systems biology of millets and bioenergy grass species. For expediting the functional genomic studies in this model crop as well as in the related millets and bioenergy grasses, we have developed a comprehensive transcription factor database. Our foxtail millet transcription factors database (FmTFDb: http://59.163.192.91/FmTFDb/index.html ) encompasses 2,297 putative TFs in 55 families along with its sequence features, chromosomal locations, tissue-specific gene expression data, gene ontology (GO) assignment, and phylogeny. FmTFDb is intended to provide the users an unrestricted public access in retrieving and visualizing the individual members of a TF family through a set of query interfaces and analysis tools, including the BLAST search, annotation query interfaces, and tools to identify enriched GO terms and to visualize physical maps. This FmTFDb will serve as a promising central resource for researchers as well as breeders who are dedicated towards crop improvement of millets and bioenergy grasses.