Publications of NIPGR Scientists

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    Unearthing root response mechanisms to soil compaction in legumes
    (John Wiley & Sons, 2026) Ganotra, Jahanvi; Pandey, Mandavi; Pandey, Bipin K.; Giri, Jitender
    Roots are essential for the survival and functioning of plants, serving as anchors in the soil and drawing in vital nutrients and water. Roots also engage in diverse microbial interactions, including pathogenic interactions that cause plant disease and non-pathogenic interactions, such as symbiotic and commensal relationships. Mechanical resistance in compacted soil is one of the biggest challenges for root exploration. Soil compaction hampers plant growth by restricting root elongation, reducing root proliferation, and limiting access to water, nutrients, and oxygen. These restrictions interfere with root-microbe interactions and also impair aboveground growth, leading to decreased shoot biomass, stunted development, and lower overall productivity. Legume roots form symbiotic relationships with soil-dwelling Rhizobium, resulting in root nodules that convert atmospheric nitrogen (N) into ammonia, thereby promoting plant growth. However, the impact of soil compaction on legume roots remains poorly studied. In this review, we examine key adaptive strategies used by legume roots to counteract soil compaction, focusing on the underlying molecular pathways. A complex signalling network regulates molecular processes that control root development and nodulation in legumes. We also explore the genetic and environmental factors that influence morphological, anatomical, and biochemical traits under mechanical stress, providing insights for improving stress resilience in legumes.
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    Key determinants of seed size for enhancing genetic gain in legumes
    (John Wiley & Sons, 2026) Padhy, Asish Kumar; Singh, Ananya; Chaurasia, Shiksha; Parida, Swarup Kumar; Tripathi, Kuldeep; Bhatia, Sabhyata
    Legumes play a pivotal role in human nutrition due to their high nutritional value, especially protein content. Therefore, enhancing the productivity of grain legumes is desirable for ensuring food and nutritional security. Seed size and seed weight are key factors influencing productivity. This article consolidates the substantial amount of research conducted to uncover the molecular signatures associated with seed size into a structured format, providing a one-stop platform of available resources for enhancing genetic gains in legumes. The advent of NGS technologies enabled the decryption of genomes and transcriptomes of important grain legumes. Moreover, molecular signatures such as SSRs, SNPs, transcription factors, methylation patterns and so forth scanned from phenotypically and genotypically well-characterized natural and mapping populations helped identify the QTLs, MTAs and candidate genes associated with seed size. Many of these QTLs and candidate genes have been utilized in marker-assisted breeding for achieving larger seeds and enhanced yield in legumes. Besides, the characterization of legume orthologs of candidate genes from other crops using different omics approaches helped in understanding the regulatory pathways involved in seed size determination in legumes. This review provides a direction for the effective utilization of available resources to enhance legume productivity.
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    Editorial: Plant-rhizobia symbiosis and nitrogen fixation in legumes
    (Frontiers Media S.A., 2024) Sinharoy, Senjuti; Tian, Chang-Fu; Montiel, Jesu´s
    Nitrogen (N) is essential for life, but eukaryotes lack the ability to access this element, as only prokaryotic enzymes can convert N to ammonia. The Haber-Bosch process revolutionized agriculture by enabling synthetic N-fertilizer production, but its overuse and mismanagement created significant environmental challenges (Rockstrom et al., 2009; Richardson et al., 2023). Biological Nitrogen Fixation (BNF) by diazotrophic bacteria and symbiotic nitrogen fixation (SNF) by N-fixing plants offer age-old solutions to the N-problem (Adams et al., 2018).
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    Emerging roles of melatonin in mitigating salinity stress of legumes
    (Elsevier B.V., 2023) Chaurasia, Shiksha; Sapna, Sapna; Padhy, Asish Kumar; Bhatia, Sabhyata
    Melatonin (N-acetyl-5‑methoxy tryptamine) is a multi-functional molecule that is distributed in all living organisms and it performs essential roles in environmental stress tolerance. Salt stress enhances the rapid accumulation of melatonin in plants. Melatonin provides resistance to salt stress by manipulating various regulatory mechanisms at the biochemical and molecular levels throughout different plant developmental stages. Conventionally, legumes are consumed along with cereal-based staples to ensure wholesome nutritional intake. After confirming their nutritional and health-promoting effects, recently their demand is constantly increasing. This has guided the researchers to focus on developing legumes to cope with the changing climate scenario. In legumes, melatonin concentration varies from crop to crop under salt stress. This review emphasizes melatonin biosynthesis in plants with a special focus on legumes and their responses to endogenous and exogenous melatonin application. This manuscript also throws light on the physiological, biochemical, and molecular basis of melatonin-mediated salinity stress tolerance in legumes. The future directions for enhancing the salt stress tolerance in legumes are also discussed. As, Melatonin promotes germination potential, seedling biomass, photosynthesis rate, pod number, and yield of legumes under the influence of salinity stress, this review can provide insights for using melatonin to develop salt stress tolerant legumes for sustainable food production.
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    Root hair-specific transcriptome reveals response to low phosphorus in Cicer arietinum
    (Frontiers Media S.A., 2022) Kohli, Pawandeep Singh; Pazhamala, Lekha T; Mani, Balaji; Thakur, Jitendra K.; Giri, Jitender
    Root hairs (RH) are a single-cell extension of root epidermal cells. In low phosphorus (LP) availability, RH length and density increase thus expanding the total root surface area for phosphate (Pi) acquisition. However, details on genes involved in RH development and response to LP are missing in an agronomically important leguminous crop, chickpea. To elucidate this response in chickpea, we performed tissue-specific RNA-sequencing and analyzed the transcriptome modulation for RH and root without RH (Root-RH) under LP. Root hair initiation and cellular differentiation genes like RSL TFs and ROPGEFs are upregulated in Root-RH, explaining denser, and ectopic RH in LP. In RH, genes involved in tip growth processes and phytohormonal biosynthesis like cell wall synthesis and loosening (cellulose synthase A catalytic subunit, CaEXPA2, CaGRP2, and CaXTH2), cytoskeleton/vesicle transport, and ethylene biosynthesis are upregulated. Besides RH development, genes involved in LP responses like lipid and/or pectin P remobilization and acid phosphatases are induced in these tissues summarizing a complete molecular response to LP. Further, RH displayed preferential enrichment of processes involved in symbiotic interactions, which provide an additional benefit during LP. In conclusion, RH shows a multi-faceted response that starts with molecular changes for epidermal cell differentiation and RH initiation in Root-RH and later induction of tip growth and various LP responses in elongated RH.