Exploring plants...Unveiling mysteries
How does lectins impart osmotic stress tolerance in rice?
Food security is a major challenging issue in India. Several abiotic stress factors like drought, salinity, and temperature stress hamper the crop production thus affecting food security. Lectins are known to play crucial role in biotic stress response in plants. However, only limited efforts have been made to explore their role in abiotic stress tolerance. Our lab focusses on understanding the involvement of lectins in imparting drought and salt stress tolerance in rice.
The R40 family lectins
The R40 group of lectin proteins is a novel family consisting of 5 functional isoforms in rice which has been identified to be strongly induced in response to osmotic stress. However, the detailed mechanism of how OsR40 proteins impart tolerance during drought stress still remains elusive.
One of the OsR40 family members, the Osr40c1, imparts drought tolerance in rice by forming a multi-protein complex with several chromatin associated proteins under drought stress. However, how this complex regulates the downstream drought responsive genes still remains to be explored.
Sahid et al., 2020
The Jacalin-related lectins
The jacalin-related lectin family includes the OsSalT protein that plays a pivotal role in drought stress tolerance. It can interact with and regulate two crucial drought responsive transcription factors, DREB2A and NAC1, thereby switching on the downstream drought-responsive genes leading to stress tolerance in rice. We are trying to establish the mechanism of this lectin-mediated regulation of DREB2A and NAC1 under drought stress.
Sahid et al., 2021
Glutathione-mediated regulation of iron homeostasis
Shee et al., 2022
How plants adapt under low iron and phosphate conditions?
Iron and phosphate are essential nutrients for plants and play indispensable role in different metabolic functions. To improve their absorption, plants exhibit specific iron and phosphate sensing and signalling mechanisms that regulate specific transporters and nutrient homeostasis associated genes. We are currently focusing on how small RNAs and secondary metabolites like glutathione function to acclimatize plants under iron deficient condition. Under phosphate deficiency, several phosphate transporters are regulated to maintain the homeostasis. In our recent study, we have found that one of the PHT family members is critically regulated by glutathione under depleted phosphate condition. We are actively engaged to unravel this regulatory mechanism.
OUR PARTNERS IN LAB
Arabidopsis
Rice
Grass pea
