Publications of NIPGR Scientists

Permanent URI for this communityhttps://ndkr-library.nipgr.ac.in/handle/123456789/1

Browse

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Secret weapon of insects: The oral secretion cocktail and its modulation of host immunity
    (Oxford University Press, 2024) Prajapati, Vinod Kumar; Vijayan, Vishakh; Vadassery, Jyothilakshmi
    Plants and insects have co-existed for almost 400 million years and their interactions can be beneficial or harmful, thus reflecting their intricate co-evolutionary dynamics. Many herbivorous arthropods cause tremendous crop loss, impacting the agro-economy worldwide. Plants possess an arsenal of chemical defenses that comprise diverse secondary metabolites that help protect against harmful herbivorous arthropods. In response, the strategies that herbivores use to cope with plant defenses can be behavioral, or molecular and/or biochemical of which salivary secretions are a key determinant. Insect salivary secretions/oral secretions (OSs) play a crucial role in plant immunity as they contain several biologically active elicitors and effector proteins that modulate plants’ defense responses. Using this oral secretion cocktail, insects overcome plant natural defenses to allow successful feeding. However, a lack of knowledge of the nature of the signals present in oral secretion cocktails has resulted in reduced mechanistic knowledge of their cellular perception. In this review, we discuss the latest knowledge on herbivore oral secretion derived elicitors and effectors and various mechanisms involved in plant defense modulation. Identification of novel herbivore-released molecules and their plant targets should pave the way for understanding the intricate strategies employed by both herbivorous arthropods and plants in their interactions.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    In silico identification of effector proteins from generalist herbivore Spodoptera litura
    (BioMed Central Ltd, 2020) Prajapati, Vinod Kumar; Varma, Mahendra; Vadassery, Jyothilakshmi
    Background: The common cutworm, Spodoptera litura Fabricius is a leaf and fruit feeding generalist insect of the order Lepidoptera and a destructive agriculture pest. The broad host range of the herbivore is due to its ability to downregulate plant defense across different plants. The identity of Spodoptera litura released effectors that downregulate plant defense are largely unknown. The current study aims to identify genes encoding effector proteins from salivary glands of S. litura (Fab.). Results: Head and salivary glands of Spodoptera litura were used for de-novo transcriptome analysis and effector prediction. Eight hundred ninety-nine proteins from the head and 330 from salivary gland were identified as secretory proteins. Eight hundred eight proteins from the head and 267 from salivary gland proteins were predicted to be potential effector proteins. Conclusions: This study is the first report on identification of potential effectors from Spodoptera litura salivary glands.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Chlorogenic acid-mediated chemical defense of plants against insect herbivores
    (John Wiley & Sons, 2019) Kundu, Anish; Vadassery, Jyothilakshmi
    Chlorogenic acid is one of the most abundant beneficial polyphenols in plants and is well known as nutritional anti‐oxidant in plant based foods. Apart from its dietary antioxidant activity, it has been proven to be an efficient defense molecule against a broad range of insect herbivores. In the last two decades, several reports have shown the effectiveness of chlorogenic acid for insect's growth deterrence. Biosynthetic pathway for chlorogenic acid biosynthesis in plants was previously elucidated and metabolic engineering of the principal pathway showed high chlorogenic acid production in tomato plants. Herbivore mediated induction of chlorogenic acid biosynthesis was also demonstrated both at metabolite and transcript level, though herbivore‐mediated molecular regulation of chlorogenic acid biosynthesis is not fully elucidated yet. In this communication, we present our views on the efficacy of chlorogenic acid as anti‐herbivore defense molecule in plants and also discuss its future outlook.