Plants have been endowed with the ability to tolerate diverse external stress. Several proteins that have been discovered to play a critical part in this adaptation respond quickly to the environmental cues. Post-translational modifications on proteins provide capacity to regulate their functions/fates. This study investigated SUMOylation, the covalent attachment of Small Ubiquitin like modifiers (SUMO) to the unique lysine residue on a target protein.

Role of inositol polyphosphates (InsPs) InsP6, InsP7 and InsP8 in maintaining the phosphate homeostasis is increasingly being established.

This review article highlights current diet therapies available for treatment of a rare genetic disorder, phenylketonuria which has grown to be prevalent in all parts of the world based on numerous epidemiological surveys. This disease is characterized by defective phenylalanine ammonia lyase leading to toxic accumulation of phenylalanine in the blood as well as blood brain barrier resulting in epileptic seizures, low intelligence quotient, mood swings, pigmentation, mental retardation and other behavioural and psychological issues.

Every year, huge losses in agriculturally important crops occur due to bacterial pathogen infestations. Due to their broad-spectrum anti-microbial activity, application of seaweed extracts (SWEs) demonstrate high potential as a viable environment-friendly crop loss prevention method. Two extracts from the red algae, Kappaphycus alvarezii, Tomatough® (LBD3) and AgFort® (LBD 12) were developed (by Sea6 Energy Pvt. Ltd, Bengaluru, India) based on differential bio-conversion of biomass.

Our skeletal muscle has an extraordinary capability to regenerate following muscle damage due to injury or disease. A muscle resident pool of stem cells known as satellite cells are essential for skeletal muscle regeneration. Under normal conditions (homeostasis), the satellite cells remain largely dormant (quiescent), but get activated upon muscle injury, leading them to divide to increase in numbers, followed by differentiation to repair and regenerate the damaged muscle fibers.

Powdery mildew is a widespread fungal disease that causes significant reduction in total biomass and seed quality of agriculturally important legumes, including pea and mung bean. With the long-term goal of developing an eco-friendly and sustainable strategy for powdery mildew disease management, we studied the role of a class of plant secondary metabolites – isoflavonoids – during legume-powdery mildew interactions.

Powdery mildew is a serious fungal disease that significantly reduces the productivity of grain and forage legumes worldwide. Due to the harmful effects of fungicides and the high risk of generating fungicide-resistant fungal strains, the use of genetic means to develop resistant legume cultivars has emerged as the preferred strategy for powdery mildew disease management. Genetic characterization of crop legumes has been challenging because of their large and complex genomes.

Apicomplexans such as the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum possess a unique organelle known as the apicoplast that has its own circular genome. The apicoplast genome is AT rich and is subjected to oxidative stress from the byproducts of the normal biochemical pathways that operate in the apicoplast. It is expected that oxidative stress will lead to the appearance of DNA lesions such as 2-hydroxydeoxyadenine, thymine glycol, and 8-oxodeoxyguanine in the apicoplast genome. The apicoplast genome is replicated by the DNA polymerase activity present in the Pfprex enzyme.

Drought induced Abscisic acid (ABA) accumulation plays a key role in plant water relations by regulating stomatal movements. Though ABA helps in the survival of the plants, reduced carbon gain affects plant productivity. To improve crop productivity under mild drought stress conditions, it is necessary to manipulate ABA responses.

Dental plaque or oral biofilm is a major cause of periodontal disease, dental caries, and infections such as infective endocarditis. Attachment of pioneer bacteria (primary or early colonizers) to the tooth surfaces (e.g., the acquired salivary pellicle coated on the tooth surface) is the first and critical step in plaque development. Coaggregation between the primary colonizers promotes biofilm growth by providing attachment sites for the secondary or late colonizers to establish the environment for subsequent stages (i.e, microcolony formation, maturation, and dispersal).