Project description:Background: The soil environment is responsible for sustaining most terrestrial plant life on earth, yet we know surprisingly little about the important functions carried out by diverse microbial communities in soil. Soil microbes that inhabit the channels of decaying root systems, the detritusphere, are likely to be essential for plant growth and health, as these channels are the preferred locations of new root growth. Understanding the microbial metagenome of the detritusphere and how it responds to agricultural management such as crop rotations and soil tillage will be vital for improving global food production. Methods: The rhizosphere soils of wheat and chickpea growing under + and - decaying root were collected for metagenomics sequencing. A gene catalogue was established by de novo assembling metagenomic sequencing. Genes abundance was compared between bulk soil and rhizosphere soils under different treatments. Conclusions: The study describes the diversity and functional capacity of a high-quality soil microbial metagenome. The results demonstrate the contribution of the microbiome from decaying root in determining the metagenome of developing root systems, which is fundamental to plant growth, since roots preferentially inhabit previous root channels. Modifications in root microbial function through soil management, can ultimately govern plant health, productivity and food security.
Project description:Microbial communities in the rhizosphere make significant contributions to crop health and nutrient cycling. However, their ability to perform important biogeochemical processes remains uncharacterized. Important functional genes, which characterize the rhizosphere microbial community, were identified to understand metabolic capabilities in the maize rhizosphere using GeoChip 3.0-based functional gene array method.
Project description:In this study, we aim to present a global view of transcriptome dynamics during various abiotic stresses in chickpea. We generated about 252 million high-quality reads from eight libraries (control, desiccation, salinity and cold stress samples for roots and shoots) using Illumina high-throughput sequencing GAII platform. We mapped the reads to the desi chickpea genome for estimation of their transcript abundance in different tissue samples. The transcriptome dynamics was studied by differential gene expression analyses between stress treatment and control sample.
Project description:Alternaria brassicae is a necrotrophic fungal pathogen which infects brassica crops and lead to huge loss in crop production. There is a need to exploit the novel resistance mechanism against A. brassicae. Under field condition, chickpea is the potential nonhost plant for A. brassicae. At molecular level, it is not known how the NHR in chickpea operates against A. brassicae. In present study, we did the transcriptomic analysis in chickpea plants exposed to nonhost pathogen, A. brassicae by using microarray. Chickpea plants were spray inoculated with the spore suspension of A. brassicae. The leaf samples were harvested after 24 hpi and 48 hpi from pathogen treated plants and from the mock-treated control plants. The Transcriptome analysis were done from the leaf samples obtained at both the time-points by microarray using Agilent ChickpeaGXP_8X60K chip. Our result suggested the robust transcriptional reprogramming leading to defense response against A. brassicae.
Project description:Purpose: To identify Fusarium wilt and salt-responsive miRNAs at genome wide level in Chickpea. Results: A total of 12,135,571 unique reads were obtained. In addition to 122 conserved miRNAs belonging to 25 different families, 59 novel miRNAs along with their star sequences were identified. Four legume specific miRNAs, miR5213, miR5232, miR2111 and miR2118 were found in all the libraries. The Poly (A) tailing assay based qRT-PCR was used to validate eleven conserved and five novel miRNAs. miR530 was highly up regulated in response to fungal infection and targets zinc knuckle and microtubule-associated proteins. Many miRNAs responded in a similar fashion under both biotic and abiotic stresses indicating a cross talk between the pathways involved in regulating these stresses. The potential target genes for the conserved and novel miRNAs were predicted based on sequence homology. miR166 targets a HD-ZIPIII transcription factor and was validated by 5’ RLM-RACE. Conclusions: The present study has led to identification of several conserved and novel miRNAs in chickpea associated with gene regulation in reference to wilt and salt stress conditions. This study will help in better understanding of how chickpea functions in response to stresses. Total three small RNA libraries from chickpea were prepared and sequenced independently [Control (C), Wilt stress (WS), Salt stress (SS)] on Illumina GAIIx.