Publications of NIPGR Scientists

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    Mass production of Ajmalicine by bioreactor cultivation of hairy roots of Catharanthus roseus
    (Elsevier B.V., 2017) Thakore, Dhara; Srivastava, Ashok Kumar; Sinha, Alok Krishna
    Catharanthus roseus has been known to produce Ajmalicine which is used for treatment of circulatory disorders. Significantly low content of the drug in the natural plant necessitates development of alternative production protocols. Hairy root propagation was considered as a viable alternative. Mass cultivation of the hairy root culture was attempted in several bioreactor configurations; Bubble column, Rotating drum bioreactor, Modified Bubble column with polypropylene (PP) mesh support and Modified Bubble column with Polyurethane foam (PUF) support. Important factors like medium composition, inoculum density, illumination period and aeration rates were optimized before mass propagation of hairy roots. From the data gleaned, the cultivation in rotating drum bioreactor resulted in ajmalicine content of only 4.6 ± 0.4 mg/l. However, the ajmalicine concentration surpassed even that obtained in shake flask (with 34 ± 2.3 mg/l) in a customized bioreactor wherein the hairy roots were anchored onto a polyurethane foam, the highest reported in this scale of cultivation.
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    Transcriptome analysis of Catharanthus roseus for gene discovery and expression profiling
    (PLOS, 2014) Verma, Mohit; Ghangal, Rajesh; Sharma, Raghvendra; Sinha, Alok Krishna; Jain, Mukesh
    The medicinal plant, Catharanthus roseus, accumulates wide range of terpenoid indole alkaloids, which are well documented therapeutic agents. In this study, deep transcriptome sequencing of C. roseus was carried out to identify the pathways and enzymes (genes) involved in biosynthesis of these compounds. About 343 million reads were generated from different tissues (leaf, flower and root) of C. roseus using Illumina platform. Optimization of de novo assembly involving a two-step process resulted in a total of 59,220 unique transcripts with an average length of 1284 bp. Comprehensive functional annotation and gene ontology (GO) analysis revealed the representation of many genes involved in different biological processes and molecular functions. In total, 65% of C. roseus transcripts showed homology with sequences available in various public repositories, while remaining 35% unigenes may be considered as C. roseus specific. In silico analysis revealed presence of 11,620 genic simple sequence repeats (excluding mono-nucleotide repeats) and 1820 transcription factor encoding genes in C. roseus transcriptome. Expression analysis showed roots and leaves to be actively participating in bisindole alkaloid production with clear indication that enzymes involved in pathway of vindoline and vinblastine biosynthesis are restricted to aerial tissues. Such large-scale transcriptome study provides a rich source for understanding plant-specialized metabolism, and is expected to promote research towards production of plant-derived pharmaceuticals.
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    Catharanthus roseus mitogen-activated protein kinase 3 confers UV and heat tolerance to Saccharomyces cerevisiae
    (Taylor & Francis, 2013) Raina, Susheel Kumar; Wankhede, Dhammaprakash Pandhari; Sinha, Alok Krishna
    Catharanthus roseus is an important source of pharmaceutically important Monoterpenoid Indole Alkaloids (MIAs). Accumulation of many of the MIAs is induced in response to abiotic stresses such as wound, ultra violet (UV) irradiations, etc. Recently, we have demonstrated a possible role of CrMPK3, a C. roseus mitogen-activated protein kinase in stress-induced accumulation of a few MIAs. Here, we extend our findings using Saccharomyces cerevisiae to investigate the role of CrMPK3 in giving tolerance to abiotic stresses. Yeast cells transformed with CrMPK3 was found to show enhanced tolerance to UV and heat stress. Comparison of CrMPK3 and SLT2, a MAPK from yeast shows high-sequence identity particularly at conserved domains. Additionally, heat stress is also shown to activate a 43 kDa MAP kinase, possibly CrMPK3 in C. roseus leaves. These findings indicate the role of CrMPK3 in stress-induced MIA accumulation as well as in stress tolerance.
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    CrMPK3, a mitogen activated protein kinase from Catharanthus roseus and its possible role in stress induced biosynthesis of monoterpenoid indole alkaloids
    (BMC, 2012) Raina, Susheel Kumar; Wankhede, Dhammaprakash Pandhari; Jaggi, Monika; Singh, Pallavi; Jalmi, Siddhi Kashinath; Raghuram, Badmi; Sheikh, Arsheed Hussain; Sinha, Alok Krishna
    Mitogen activated protein kinase (MAPK) cascade is an important signaling cascade that operates in stress signal transduction in plants. The biologically active monoterpenoid indole alkaloids (MIA) produced in Catharanthus roseus are known to be induced under several abiotic stress conditions such as wounding, UV-B etc. However involvement of any signaling component in the accumulation of MIAs remains poorly investigated so far. Here we report isolation of a novel abiotic stress inducible Catharanthus roseus MAPK, CrMPK3 that may have role in accumulation of MIAs in response to abiotic stress.
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    Ectopic overexpression of vacuolar and apoplastic Catharanthus roseus peroxidases confers differential tolerance to salt and dehydration stress in transgenic tobacco
    (Springer Science, 2012) Kumar, Santosh; Jaggi, Monika; Sinha, Alok Krishna
    CrPrx and CrPrx1 are class III peroxidases previously cloned and characterized from Catharanthus roseus. CrPrx is known to be apoplastic in nature, while CrPrx1 is targeted to vacuoles. In order to study their role in planta, these two peroxidases were expressed in Nicotiana tabacum. The transformed plants exhibited increased peroxidase activity. Increased oxidative stress tolerance was also observed in transgenics when treated with H(2)O(2) under strong light conditions. However, differential tolerance to salt and dehydration stress was observed during germination of T1 transgenic seeds. Under these stresses, the seed germination of CrPrx-transformed plants and wild-type plants was clearly suppressed, whereas CrPrx1 transgenic lines showed improved germination. CrPrx-transformed lines exhibited better cold tolerance than CrPrx1-transformed lines. These results indicate that vacuolar peroxidase plays an important role in salt and dehydration stress over cell wall-targeted peroxidase, while cell wall-targeted peroxidase renders cold stress tolerance.
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    Cloning and characterization of two new Class III peroxidase genes from Catharanthus roseus
    (Elsevier, 2011) Kumar, Santosh; Jaggi, Monika; Taneja, Jyoti; Sinha, Alok Krishna
    We report here the cloning and characterization of two new class III peroxidase genes, CrPrx3 and CrPrx4 from Catharanthus roseus. The full length cDNA of CrPrx3 is 1233 bp long encoding 330 amino acid residues. The CrPrx4 cDNA contains an ORF of 1055 bp, and encodes for 318 amino acids. Hypothetical 3-D structure model of CrPrx3 and CrPrx4 detected the presence of two Ca(2+) ion binding sites at proximal and distal end, and a heme group coordinate at central position. CrPrx3 and CrPrx4 are present in single copy number in C. roseus. Confocal scanning microscopy and phylogenetic analysis showed that CrPrx3 and CrPrx4 are apoplastic in nature. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that both genes have diverse expression patterns in a variety of plant tissues. Quantitative real-time PCR confirmed their maximum expression in stem tissues followed by flower tissue. The expression levels of CrPrx3 and CrPrx4 were down-regulated under salt and dehydration stress, respectively.
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    Overexpression of an apoplastic peroxidase gene CrPrx in transgenic hairy root lines of Catharanthus roseus
    (Springer Science, 2011) Jaggi, Monika; Kumar, Santosh; Sinha, Alok Krishna
    Peroxidases are a family of isoenzymes found in all higher plants and are known to be involved in a broad range of physiological processes. However, very little information is available concerning their role in Catharanthus roseus. The present study describes the impact of both overexpression and suppression of a peroxidase gene, CrPrx in C. roseus transgenic hairy root lines. Real-time PCR analysis in 35S-CrPrx and CrPrx-RNAi transgenic lines indicated differential transcript profile for peroxidases as well as for genes and regulators involved in MIA (monoterpenoid indole alkaloid) pathway of C. roseus. Comparative analysis revealed that MIA pathway genes showing elevated levels of expression in 35S-CrPrx transgenic lines showed a significant reduction in their transcript level in CrPrx-RNAi transgenic lines. Metabolite analysis detected higher levels of ajmalicine and serpentine accumulation in overexpressed lines. It was observed that all overexpressed transgenic lines produced more amount of H(2)O(2). These results indicate a role of CrPrx gene in the regulation of MIA pathway genes and regulators, thus affecting the production of specific alkaloids.
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    Effect of loss of T-DNA genes on MIA biosynthetic pathway gene regulation and alkaloid accumulation in Catharanthus roseus hairy roots
    (Springer, 2010) Taneja, Jyoti; Jaggi, Monika; Wankhede, Dhammaprakash Pandhari; Sinha, Alok Krishna
    Hairy roots are generated by integration of T-DNA in host plant genome from root inducing (Ri) plasmid of Agrobacterium rhizogenes and have been utilized for production of secondary metabolites in different plant systems. In Catharanthus roseus, hairy roots are known to show different morphologies, growth patterns, and alkaloid contents. It is also known that during transformation, there is a differential loss of a few T-DNA genes. To decipher the effect of loss of T-DNA genes on the various aspects of hairy roots, ten hairy root clones were analyzed for the presence or absence of T-DNA genes and its implications. It was found that the loss of a few ORFs drastically affects the growth and morphological patterns of hairy roots. The absence of T(R)-DNA from hairy roots revealed increased transcript accumulation and higher alkaloid concentrations, whereas callusing among hairy root lines led to decreased transcript and alkaloid accumulation. Significantly higher expression of MIA biosynthetic pathway genes and low abundance of regulator transcripts in hairy root clones in comparison with non-transformed control roots were also observed. This study indicates that it is not only the integration of T-DNA at certain region of host plant genome but also the presence or absence of important ORFs that affects the expression patterns of MIA biosynthetic pathway genes, regulators, and accumulation of specific alkaloids.
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    Cloning, characterization and localization of a novel basic peroxidase gene from Catharanthus roseus
    (Wiley-Blackwell, 2007) Kumar, Santosh; Dutta, Ajaswrata; Sinha, Alok Krishna; Sen, Jayanti
    Catharanthus roseus (L.) G. Don produces a number of biologically active terpenoid indole alkaloids via a complex terpenoid indole alkaloid biosynthetic pathway. The final dimerization step of this pathway, leading to the synthesis of a dimeric alkaloid, vinblastine, was demonstrated to be catalyzed by a basic peroxidase. However, reports of the gene encoding this enzyme are scarce for C. roseus. We report here for the first time the cloning, characterization and localization of a novel basic peroxidase, CrPrx, from C. roseus. A 394 bp partial peroxidase cDNA (CrInt1) was initially amplified from the internodal stem tissue, using degenerate oligonucleotide 1 primers, and cloned. The full-length coding region of CrPrx cDNA was isolated by screening a leaf-specific cDNA library with CrInt1 as probe. The CrPrx nucleotide sequence encodes a deduced translation product of 330 amino acids with a 21 amino acid signal peptide, suggesting that CrPrx is secretory in nature. The molecular mass of this unprocessed and unmodified deduced protein is estimated to be 37.43 kDa, and the pI value is 8.68. CrPrx was found to belong to a ‘three intron’ category of gene that encodes a class III basic secretory peroxidase. CrPrx protein and mRNA were found to be present in specific organs and were regulated by different stress treatments. Using a beta-glucuronidase–green fluorescent protein fusion of CrPrx protein, we demonstrated that the fused protein is localized in leaf epidermal and guard cell walls of transiently transformed tobacco. We propose that CrPrx is involved in cell wall synthesis, and also that the gene is induced under methyl jasmonate treatment. Its potential involvement in the terpenoid indole alkaloid biosynthetic pathway is discussed.