Mapping of on-field soil nutrient variabilities as a guiding force for smart farming: a case study from FarmerZone sentinel-1 from three potato agroecological zones of India.

Mapping of soil nutrient parameters using experimental measurements and geostatistical approaches to assist site-specific fertiliser advisories is anticipated to play a significant role in Smart Agriculture. FarmerZone is a cloud service envisioned by the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India, to provide advisories to assist smallholder farmers in India in enhancing their overall farm production. As a part of the project, we evaluated the soil spatial variability of three potato agroecological zones in India and provided soil health cards along with field-specific fertiliser recommendations for potato cultivation to farmers.

Genome-scale metabolic model led engineering of plant cells for high camptothecin production.

Camptothecin (CPT) is a vital monoterpene indole alkaloid used in anti-cancer therapeutics. It is primarily derived from and plants that are indigenous to Southeast Asia. Plants have intricate metabolic networks and use them to produce secondary metabolites such as CPT, which is a prerequisite for rational metabolic engineering design to optimize their production.

Insights into sustainable resource and energy recovery from leachate towards emission mitigation for environmental management: A critical approach.

The exponential generation of municipal solid waste (MSW) and landfill disposal without any treatment has increased the continuous generation of landfill leachate. Improper MSW and leachate management are contributing to environmental degradation and water and soil pollution, which must be treated. Numerous works have been conducted on leachate treatments for energy and resource recovery.

Transcription factors BBX11 and HY5 interdependently regulate the molecular and metabolic responses to UV-B.

UV-B radiation acts as a developmental cue and a stress factor for plants, depending on dose. Activation of the transcription factor ELONGATED HYPOCOTYL 5 (HY5) in a UV RESISTANCE LOCUS 8 (UVR8)-dependent manner leads to the induction of a broad set of genes under UV-B. However, the underlying molecular mechanisms regulating this process are less understood.

Mutants lacking global regulators, fis and arcA, in Escherichia coli enhanced growth fitness under acetate metabolism by pathway reprogramming.

Global regulatory transcription factors play a significant role in controlling microbial metabolism under genetic and environmental perturbations. A system-level effect of carbon sources such as acetate on microbial metabolism under disrupted global regulators has not been well established. Acetate is one of the major substrates available in various nutrient niches such as the mammalian gut and a keto diet.

A robust method of extraction and GC-MS analysis of Monophenols exhibited UV-B mediated accumulation in Arabidopsis.

Unlabelled: Studies on specialized metabolites like phenolics are of immense interest owing to their significance to agriculture, nutrition and health. In plants, phenolics accumulate and exhibit spatial and temporal regulations in response to growth conditions. Robust methodologies aimed at efficient extraction of plant phenolics, their qualitative and quantitative analysis is desired.

Structural, Morphological, Optical and Electrical Characterization of Gahnite Ferroan Nano Composite Derived from Fly Ash Silica and ZnO Mixture.

The synthesis of a high value-added product, gahnite ferroan nano composite, from a mixture of fly ash silica and ZnO is a low-cost and non-expensive technique. The XRD pattern clearly reveals the synthesized product from fly ash after leaching is a product of high-purity gahnite ferroan composite. The grains are mostly cubical in shape.

Phytochemical rich Himalayan petals inhibit SARS-CoV-2 infection .

Phytochemicals with potential to competitively bind to the host receptors or inhibit SARS-CoV-2 replication, may prove to be useful as adjunct therapeutics for COVID-19. We profiled and investigated the phytochemicals of petals sourced from Himalayan flora, undertook studies and found it as a promising candidate against SARS-CoV-2. The phytochemicals were reported in various scientific investigations to act against a range of virus and which prompted us to test against SARS-CoV-2.

Organic waste conversion through anaerobic digestion: A critical insight into the metabolic pathways and microbial interactions.

Anaerobic digestion is a promising method for energy recovery through conversion of organic waste to biogas and other industrial valuables. However, to tap the full potential of anaerobic digestion, deciphering the microbial metabolic pathway activities and their underlying bioenergetics is required. In addition, the behavior of organisms in consortia along with the analytical abilities to kinetically measure their metabolic interactions will allow rational optimization of the process.

The unique bryophyte-specific repeat-containing protein SHORT-LEAF regulates gametophore development in moss.

Convergent evolution of shoot development across plant lineages has prompted numerous comparative genetic studies. Though functional conservation of gene networks governing flowering plant shoot development has been explored in bryophyte gametophore development, the role of bryophyte-specific genes remains unknown. Previously, we have reported Tnt1 insertional mutants of moss defective in gametophore development.

Insights into the Polyhydroxybutyrate Biosynthesis in Using Parallel C Tracers and Comparative Genome Analysis.

Bacterial accumulation of poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) [P(3HB)] is a metabolic strategy often adopted to cope with challenging surroundings. , a phytopathogen, seems to be an ideal candidate with inherent ability to accumulate this biodegradable polymer of high industrial relevance. This study is focused on investigating the metabolic networks that channel glucose into P(3HB) using comparative genome analysis, C tracers, microscopy, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), and proton nuclear magnetic resonance (H NMR).

Enhanced Field-Based Detection of Potato Blight in Complex Backgrounds Using Deep Learning.

Rapid and automated identification of blight disease in potato will help farmers to apply timely remedies to protect their produce. Manual detection of blight disease can be cumbersome and may require trained experts. To overcome these issues, we present an automated system using the Mask Region-based convolutional neural network (Mask R-CNN) architecture, with residual network as the backbone network for detecting blight disease patches on potato leaves in field conditions.

ELONGATED HYPOCOTYL5 Negatively Regulates to Increase Survival during UV-B Stress.

Understanding how the distinct cell types of the shoot apical meristem (SAM) withstand ultraviolet radiation (UVR) stress can improve cultivation of plants in high-UVR environments. Here, we show that UV-B irradiation selectively kills epidermal and niche cells in the shoot apex. Plants harboring a mutation in () are tolerant to UV-B.

A Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) Platform for Real-Time Metabolic Monitoring of Bioprocesses.

We present a Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) compatible platform for the automated real-time monitoring of biochemical reactions using a flow shuttling configuration. This platform requires a working sample volume of ∼11 mL and it can circulate samples with a flow rate of 28 mL/min., which makes it suitable to be used for real-time monitoring of biochemical reactions.

Allosteric inhibition of MTHFR prevents futile SAM cycling and maintains nucleotide pools in one-carbon metabolism.

Methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR) links the folate cycle to the methionine cycle in one-carbon metabolism. The enzyme is known to be allosterically inhibited by SAM for decades, but the importance of this regulatory control to one-carbon metabolism has never been adequately understood. To shed light on this issue, we exchanged selected amino acid residues in a highly conserved stretch within the regulatory region of yeast MTHFR to create a series of feedback-insensitive, deregulated mutants.

Efficient System Wide Metabolic Pathway Comparisons in Multiple Microbes Using Genome to KEGG Orthology (G2KO) Pipeline Tool.

Comparison of system-wide metabolic pathways among microbes provides valuable insights of organisms' metabolic capabilities that can further assist in rationally screening organisms in silico for various applications. In this work, we present a much needed, efficient and user-friendly Genome to KEGG Orthology (G2KO) pipeline tool that facilitates efficient comparison of system wide metabolic networks of multiple organisms simultaneously. The optimized strategy primarily involves automatic retrieval of the KEGG Orthology (KO) identifiers of user defined organisms from the KEGG database followed by overlaying and visualization of the metabolic genes using the KEGG Mapper reconstruct pathway tool.

Overexpression of improved EPSPS gene results in field level glyphosate tolerance and higher grain yield in rice.

Glyphosate is a popular, systemic, broad-spectrum herbicide used in modern agriculture. Being a structural analog of phosphoenolpyruvate (PEP), it inhibits 5-enolpyruvylshikimate 3-phosphate synthase (EPSPS) which is responsible for the biosynthesis of aromatic amino acids and various aromatic secondary metabolites. Taking a lead from glyphosate-resistant weeds, two mutant variants of the rice EPSPS gene were developed by amino acid substitution (T173I + P177S; TIPS-OsEPSPS and G172A + T173I + P177S; GATIPS-OsEPSPS).

The Entner-Doudoroff and Nonoxidative Pentose Phosphate Pathways Bypass Glycolysis and the Oxidative Pentose Phosphate Pathway in Ralstonia solanacearum.

In , a devastating phytopathogen whose metabolism is poorly understood, we observed that the Entner-Doudoroff (ED) pathway and nonoxidative pentose phosphate pathway (non-OxPPP) bypass glycolysis and OxPPP under glucose oxidation. Evidence derived from C stable isotope feeding and genome annotation-based comparative metabolic network analysis supported the observations. Comparative metabolic network analysis derived from the currently available 53 annotated strains, including a recently reported strain (F1C1), representing the four phylotypes, confirmed the lack of key genes coding for phosphofructokinase () and phosphogluconate dehydrogenase () enzymes that are relevant for glycolysis and OxPPP, respectively.

Nitric oxide accelerates germination via the regulation of respiration in chickpea.

Seed germination is crucial for the plant life cycle. We investigated the role of nitric oxide (NO) in two chickpea varieties that differ in germination capacity: Kabuli, which has a low rate of germination and germinates slowly, and Desi, which shows improved germination properties. Desi produced more NO than Kabuli and had lower respiratory rates.

BBX31 promotes hypocotyl growth, primary root elongation and UV-B tolerance in Arabidopsis.

Photomorphogenesis is an important developmental process that helps the seedlings adapt to external light conditions. B-Box proteins are a family of transcription factors that regulate photomorphogenic responses. BBX31 negatively regulates photomorphogenesis under visible light.