Publications of NIPGR Scientists

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    Trans-QTL alliance of HKT1 and PHL7 modulate salinity stress tolerance and enhance crop yield endurance
    (John Wiley & Sons, 2026) Mohanty, Jitendra K.; Yadav, Antima; Narnoliya, Laxmi; Thakro, Virevol; Rathore, Deepanshi; Tripathi, Shailesh; Sinharoy, Senjuti; Agarwal, Pinky; Parida, Swarup K.
    Salinity stress can cause significant yield losses in crops because of its major impact on reproductive success. The complexity of salinity stress responses, particularly their tissue- and cell-specific regulation, continues to challenge the translation of molecular insights into tangible crop yield improvements. In the present study, the authors deployed a genomic strategy combining a genome-wide association study, regional association analysis, QTL mapping, fine mapping, and map-based cloning to delineate a pair of novel CaPHL7 and CaHKT1 alleles that regulate yield under salinity stress. The selected contrasting accessions, developed near-isogenic lines (NILs), overexpressed chickpea lines and complemented Arabidopsis lines collectively underscore the functional significance of the identified alleles in relaying yield endurance under salinity stress conditions. Functional characterisation of the genes revealed the intricate transcriptional regulation of CaHKT1 by CaPHL7, which influences the degree of salinity stress tolerance. Furthermore, in our efforts to enhance yield endurance, we discovered a novel regulatory role for the phosphorus (P) starvation-responsive gene (PHL7) in legumes, facilitating salinity stress adaptation. This study provides the first functional validation of a trans-QTL regulatory model in chickpea, where CaPHL7, located on one chromosome, transcriptionally activates CaHKT1 on a separate chromosome. The regulatory mechanism plays a key role in excluding sodium from the transpiration stream, thereby protecting reproductive processes from salinity-induced damage and mitigating yield penalties. This inter-locus regulation explains yield stability and offers useful insights that may be considered in future efforts to enhance salt resilience in chickpea.
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    A next-generation combinatorial genomic strategy scans genomic loci governing heat stress tolerance in chickpea
    (John Wiley & Sons, 2025) Mohanty, Jitendra K.; Yadav, Antima; Narnoliya, Laxmi; Thakro, Virevol; Nayyar, Harsh; Dixit, Girish P.; Jha, Uday Chand; Prasad, P. V. Vara; Agarwal, Pinky; Parida, Swarup K.
    In the wake of rising earth temperature, chickpea crop production is haunted by the productivity crisis. Chickpea, a cool season legume manifests tolerance in several agro-physiological level, which is complex quantitative in nature, and regulated by multiple genes and genetic networks. Understanding the molecular genetic basis of this tolerance and identifying key regulators can leverage chickpea breeding against heat stress. This study employed a genomics-assisted breeding strategy utilizing multi-locus GWAS to identify 10 key genomic regions linked to traits contributing to heat stress tolerance in chickpea. These loci subsequently delineated few key candidates and hub regulatory genes, such as RAD23b, CIPK25, AAE19, CK1 and WRKY40, through integrated genomics, transcriptomics and interactive analyses. The differential transcript accumulation of these identified candidates in contrasting chickpea accessions suggests their potential role in heat stress tolerance. Differential ROS accumulation along with their scavengers' transcript abundance aligning with the expression of identified candidates in the contrasting chickpea accessions persuade their regulatory significance. Additionally, their functional significance is ascertained by heterologous expression and subsequent heat stress screening. The high confidence genomic loci and the superior genes and natural alleles delineated here has great potential for swift genomic interventions to enhance heat resilience and yield stability in chickpea.
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    Identification of a stable drought-tolerant high-yielding line for chickpea crop improvement
    (Springer Nature Publishing AG, 2025) Gupta, Santosh Kumar; Dwivedi, Vikas; Kute, Nandakumar Surendra; Francis, Philip; Parida, Swarup K.; Chattopadhyay, Debasis
    Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is grown in marginal land with low input and is, therefore, drought-prone. In order to develop a drought-tolerant line, a bi-parental recombinant inbred line (RIL) mapping population was generated by inter-crossing between two varieties JGK3 (ICCV 95334) and Himchana1 (ICCX-810800) having contrasting root traits. Ninety-two genetically diverse RILs of F8 generation were selected based on their total root length to root dry weight ratio (RL/DW). The leaf relative water content of these RILs under low soil moisture did not show any strong correlation with the RL/DW. Twenty RILs having high RL/DW were evaluated for seed yield in a field under rainfed condition without any supplementary irrigation. The best performing RIL, which performed better than the check varieties, was reevaluated for a further year under rainfed condition. The genotypic constitution of this superior low soil moisture tolerant individual RIL was determined by constructing its recombination map using genome-wide SNPs obtained through genotyping-by-sequencing. The RIL possesses the superior alleles of the genomic QTL region known to govern drought tolerance in chickpea. The phenotypic and genotypic characterization of RILs in our study identified a chickpea pre-breeding line that can be used as a genetic donor for developing drought-tolerant high-yielding chickpea varieties and our results provide an evidence that total root length to root dry weight ratio can be used as a quantitative trait for assessing drought tolerance.
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    Delineation of genes for a major QTL governing heat stress tolerance in chickpea
    (Springer Nature Publishing AG, 2024) Mohanty, Jitendra K.; Thakro, Virevol; Yadav, Antima; Nayyar, Harsh; Dixit, Girish P.; Agarwal, Pinky; Parida, Swarup K.; Jha, Uday Chand
    Chickpea (Cicer arietinum) is a cool season grain legume experiencing severe yield loss during heat stress due to the intensifying climate changes and its associated gradual increase of mean temperature. Hence, understanding the genetic architecture regulating heat stress tolerance has emerged as an important trait to be addressed for enhancing yield and productivity of chickpea under heat stress. The present study is intended to identify the major genomic region(s) governing heat stress tolerance in chickpea. For this, an integrated genomics-assisted breeding strategy involving NGS-based high-resolution QTL-seq assay, QTL region-specifc association analysis and molecular haplotyping was deployed in a population of 206 mapping individuals and a diversity panel of 217 germplasm accessions of chickpea. This combinatorial strategy delineated a major 156.8 kb QTL genomic region, which was subsequently narrowed-down to a functional candidate gene CaHSFA5 and its natural alleles associated strongly with heat stress tolerance in chickpea. Superior natural alleles and haplotypes delineated from the CaHSFA5 gene have functional signifcance in regulating heat stress tolerance in chickpea. Histochemical staining, interaction studies along with diferential expression profling of CaHSFA5 and ROS scavenging genes suggest a cross talk between CaHSFA5 with ROS homeostasis pertaining to heat stress tolerance in chickpea. Heterologous gene expression followed by heat stress screening further validated the functional signifcance of CaHSFA5 for heat stress tolerance. The salient outcomes obtained here can have potential to accelerate multiple translational genomic analysis including marker-assisted breeding and gene editing in order to develop high-yielding heat stress tolerant chickpea varieties.
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    eQTL-seq: a rapid genome-wide integrative genetical genomics strategy to dissect complex regulatory architecture of gene expression underlying quantitative trait variation in crop plants
    (Springer Nature Publishing AG, 2024) Mohanty, Jitendra K.; Jha, Uday Chand; Dixit, G. P.; Bharadwaj, Chellapilla; Parida, Swarup K.
    We developed a combinatorial next generation sequencing (NGS)-based high-throughput expression QTL-seq (eQTL-seq) strategy for rapid elucidation of complex genetic architecture and regulatory pathways of gene expression underlying quantitative trait variation in crop plants. This high-resolution genome-wide integrative genetical genomics strategy assists us to delineate functionally relevant molecular tags (QTLs/eQTLs, genes, master regulators/transcription factors, and alleles) regulating vital agronomic traits in order to expedite genomics-assisted breeding and crop improvement. As a proof-of-concept, the optimized eQTL-seq-led genetical genomics approach was employed in 192 mapping individuals of an intra-specific recombinant inbred line (RIL) population (desi accession ICC 4958 x kabuli accession ICC 12968) with contrasting seed weight trait. This led to identification and mapping of high-resolution major QTLs/eQTLs associated with seed weight based on genome resequence-derived genomic SNP-index (Delta(gSNP-index)), global transcriptome sequence-based expression SNP-index (Delta(eSNP-index)), and relative gene expression (RGE)-index (Delta(RGE-index)). The eQTL-seq scaled down the major seed weight QTLs/eQTLs into the potential candidate gene(s) governing cis- and trans-regulated expression to decipher the gene regulatory modules controlling complex quantitative seed weight trait by deriving global allele-specific gene expression polymorphism in chickpea. Henceforth, the efficacy of NGS-driven integrative eQTL-seq strategy as compared to traditional QTL mapping, fine-mapping (map-based cloning), and QTL-seq approaches that are widely adopted for delineation of candidate genes underlying major QTLs was evident in chickpea. This will further accelerate quantitative dissection of regulatory architecture by decoding the molecular genetic basis of gene expression variation controlling diverse complex phenotypic trait diversity in chickpea and other crop plants as well.
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    A superior gene allele involved in abscisic acid signaling enhances drought tolerance and yield in chickpea
    (Oxford University Press, 2023) Thakro, Virevol; Malik, Naveen; Basu, Udita; Srivastava, Rishi; Narnoliya, Laxmi; Daware, Anurag; Varshney, Nidhi; Mohanty, Jitendra K; Bajaj, Deepak; Dwivedi, Vikas; Tripathi, Shailesh; Jha, Uday Chand; Dixit, Girish Prasad; Singh, Ashok K; Tyagi, Akhilesh K.; Upadhyaya, Hari D; Parida, Swarup K.
    Identifying potential molecular tags for drought tolerance is essential for achieving higher crop productivity under drought stress. We employed an integrated genomics-assisted breeding and functional genomics strategy involving association mapping, fine mapping, map-based cloning, molecular haplotyping and transcript profiling in the introgression lines (ILs)- and near isogenic lines (NILs)-based association panel and mapping population of chickpea (Cicer arietinum). This combinatorial approach delineated a bHLH (basic helix-loop-helix) transcription factor, CabHLH10 (Cicer arietinum bHLH10) underlying a major QTL, along with its derived natural alleles/haplotypes governing yield traits under drought stress in chickpea. CabHLH10 binds to a cis-regulatory G-box promoter element to modulate the expression of RD22 (responsive to desiccation 22), a drought/ABA-responsive gene (via a trans-expression QTL), and two strong yield-enhancement photosynthetic efficiency (PE) genes. This, in turn, upregulates other downstream drought-responsive and abscisic acid signaling genes, as well as yield-enhancing PE genes, thus increasing plant adaptation to drought with reduced yield penalty. We showed that a superior allele of CabHLH10 introgressed into the NILs improved root and shoot biomass and PE, thereby enhancing yield and productivity during drought without compromising agronomic performance. Furthermore, overexpression of CabHLH10 in chickpea and Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) conferred enhanced drought tolerance by improving root and shoot agro-morphological traits. These findings facilitate translational genomics for crop improvement and the development of genetically-tailored, climate-resilient, high-yielding chickpea cultivars.
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    The DNA replication, repair, and recombination pathway genes modulating yield and stress tolerance traits in chickpea
    (Springer Nature Publishing AG, 2022) Basu, Udita; Sharma, Akash; Bajaj, Deepak; Malik, Naveen; Jha, Uday Chand; Upadhyaya, Hari D.; Parida, Swarup K.
    DNA replication, repair, and recombination (DRRR) are the fundamental processes required for faithful transmission of genetic information within and between generations. The DRRR genes protect the cells from potential mutations and damage during the developmental phases and stress conditions. Thus, these genes indirectly regulate diverse important agronomic traits in a crop plant. A genome-wide survey of six DRRR pathway genes, namely, DNA replication, Base Excision Repair, Nucleotide Excision Repair, Homologous Recombination, Mismatch Excision Repair, and Non-Homologous End-Joining, identifed 157 DRRR genes in chickpea. Phylogenetic analysis of these genes within the legume clades and model plant Arabidopsis identifed 42 conserved DRRR genes exhibiting clade-specifc evolutionary patterns. Integrating the gene-based association mapping with diferential expression profling identifed the natural alleles of the potential DRRR genes, primarily regulating fowering and maturation time and involved in drought tolerance of chickpea. Identifying and understanding DRRR genes’ roles in regulating yield and stress tolerance traits in a vital grain legume like chickpea is requisite for its future crop improvement endeavors. Manipulation of promising functionally relevant DRRR genes will pave the way for simultaneous improvement in multiple benefcial agronomic traits in chickpea.
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    ABC transporter-mediated transport of glutathione conjugates enhances seed yield and quality in chickpea
    (American Society of Plant Biologists, 2019) Basu, Udita; Upadhyaya, Hari D.; Srivastava, Rishi; Daware, Anurag; Malik, Naveen; Sharma, Akash; Bajaj, Deepak; Narnoliya, Laxmi; Thakro, Virevol; Kujur, Alice; Tripathi, Shailesh; Bharadwaj, Chellapilla; Hegde, V. S.; Pandey, Ajay K.; Singh, Ashok K.; Tyagi, Akhilesh K.; Parida, Swarup K.
    The identification of functionally relevant molecular tags is vital for genomics-assisted crop improvement and enhancing the seed yield, quality and productivity in chickpea. The simultaneous improvement of yield/productivity as well as quality traits often requires pyramiding of multiple genes, which remains a major hurdle given various associated epistatic and pleotropic effects. Unfortunately, no single gene that can improve yield/productivity along with quality and other desirable agromorphological traits is known, hampering the genetic enhancement of chickpea. Using a combinatorial genomics-assisted breeding and functional genomics strategy, this study identified natural alleles and haplotypes of an ABCC3-type transporter gene that regulates seed weight, an important domestication trait, by transcriptional regulation and modulating the transport of glutathione conjugates in seeds of desi and kabuli chickpea. The superior allele/haplotype of this gene introgressed in desi and kabuli near-isogenic lines enhances the seed weight, yield, productivity and multiple desirable plant architecture and seed-quality traits without compromising the agronomic performance. These salient findings can expedite crop improvement endeavors and the development of nutritionally enriched high-yielding cultivars in chickpea.
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    Genetic dissection of photosynthetic efficiency traits for enhancing seed yield in chickpea
    (John Wiley & Sons, 2019) Basu, Udita; Bajaj, Deepak; Sharma, Akash; Malik, Naveen; Daware, Anurag; Narnoliya, Laxmi; Thakro, Virevol; Upadhyaya, Hari D.; Kumar, Rajendra; Tripathi, Shailesh; Bharadwaj, Chellapilla; Tyagi, Akhilesh K.; Parida, Swarup K.
    Understanding the genetic basis of photosynthetic efficiency (PE) contributing to enhanced seed yield per plant (SYP) is vital for genomics-assisted crop improvement of chickpea. The current study employed an integrated genomic strategy involving photosynthesis pathway gene-based association mapping, genome-wide association study, QTL mapping and expression profiling. This identified 16 potential SNP loci linked to major QTLs underlying 16 candidate genes significantly associated with PE and SYP traits in chickpea. The allelic variants were tightly linked to positively interacting QTLs regulating both enhanced PE and SYP traits as exemplified by a chlorophyll A-B binding protein-coding gene. The leaf tissue-specific pronounced up-regulated expression of 16 associated genes in germplasm accessions and homozygous individuals of mapping population was evident. Such combinatorial genomic strategy coupled with gene haplotype-specific association as well as in silico protein-protein interaction study delineated natural alleles and superior haplotypes from a chlorophyll A-B binding protein-coding gene and its interacting gene, Timing of CAB Expression 1, which appear to be most-promising candidates in modulating chickpea PE and SYP traits. These functionally pertinent molecular signatures identified have efficacy to drive marker-assisted selection for developing PE-enriched cultivars with high seed yield in chickpea.
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    Identifying transcription factor genes associated with yield traits in chickpea
    (Springer, 2017) Shimray, Philanim Wungmarong; Bajaj, Deepak; Srivastava, Rishi; Daware, Anurag; Upadhyaya, Hari D.; Kumar, Rajendra; Bharadwaj, Chellapilla; Tyagi, Akhilesh K.; Parida, Swarup K.
    Identification of potential transcription factor (TF) gene-derived natural SNP allelic variants regulating pod and seed yield component traits by large-scale mining and genotyping of SNPs in natural germplasm accessions coupled with high-resolution association mapping is vital for understanding the complex genetic architecture of quantitative yield traits in chickpea. In these perspectives, the current study employed a genome-wide GBS (genotyping-by-sequencing) and targeted gene amplicon resequencing-based simultaneous SNP discovery and genotyping assays, which discovered 1611 novel SNPs from 736 TF genes physically mapped on eight chromosomes and unanchored scaffolds of kabuli chickpea genome. These SNPs were structurally and functionally annotated in diverse synonymous and non-synonymous coding as well as non-coding regulatory and intronic sequence components of chickpea TF genes. A high-resolution genetic association analysis was performed by correlating the genotyping information of 1611 TF gene-based SNPs with multi-location/years field phenotyping data of six major pod and seed yield traits evaluated in a constituted association panel (326 desi and kabuli germplasm accessions) of chickpea. This essentially identified 27 TF gene-derived SNPs exhibiting significant association with six major yield traits, namely days to 50% flowering (DF), plant height (PH), branch number (BN), pod number (PN), seed number (SN) and seed weight (SW) in chickpea. These trait-associated SNPs individually and in combination explained 10–23% and 32% phenotypic variation respectively for the studied yield component traits. Interestingly, novel non-synonymous coding SNP allelic variants in five potential candidate TF genes encoding SBP (squamosal promoter binding protein), SNF2 (sucrose non-fermenting 2), GRAS [Gibberellic acid insensitive (GAI)-Repressor of GAI (RGA)-SCARECROW (SCR)], bZIP (basic leucine zipper) and LOB (lateral organ boundaries)-domain proteins associated strongly with DF, PH, BN, PN, SN and SW traits respectively were found most promising in chickpea. The functionally relevant molecular signatures (TFs and natural SNP alleles) delineated by us have potential to accelerate marker-assisted genetic enhancement by developing high pod and seed yielding cultivars of chickpea.