Intake of added cane sugars can lead to lifestyle-associated diseases such as insulin resistance, type-2 diabetes, liver problems, metabolic syndrome, heart disease, etc. As per a World Health Organization (WHO) report, presently about 422 million people are diabetic worldwide. Several synthetic sweeteners of low calorific value have recently been launched in the market by the pharmaceutical and food industries. However, their possible health issues generally … Continue reading First-ever Monk Fruit Cultivation in India by CSIR-IHBT

Moso bamboo (Phyllostachys edulis) is an economically and ecologically important nontimber forestry species. Further development of this species as a sustainable bamboo resource has been hindered by a lack of population genome information. Here, we report a moso bamboo genomic variation atlas of 5.45 million single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) from whole-genome resequencing of 427 individuals covering 15 representative geographic areas. We uncover low genetic diversity, high … Continue reading Analysis of 427 genomes reveals moso bamboo population structure

The expansion of the oil palm in marginal areas can face challenges, such as water deficit, leading to an impact on palm oil production. A better understanding of the biological consequences of abiotic stresses on this crop can result from joint metabolic profiling and multivariate analysis. Metabolic profiling of leaves was performed from control and stressed plants (7 and 14 days of stress). Samples were extracted … Continue reading Metabolic effect of drought stress on the leaves of young oil palm

Nanosensors developed at the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) can detect synthetic auxin plant hormones NAA and 2,4-D. The scientists designed sensors for two plant hormones—1-naphthalene acetic acid (NAA) and 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4D)—which are used extensively in the farming industry for regulating plant growth and as herbicides, respectively. Current methods to detect NAA and 2,4D cause damage to plants, and are unable to … Continue reading Researchers design sensors to rapidly detect plant hormones

Basal stem rot (BSR) of oil palm is a disastrous disease caused by a white-rot fungus Ganoderma boninense Pat. Non-ribosomal peptides (NRPs) synthesized by non-ribosomal peptide synthetases (NRPSs) are a group of secondary metabolites that act as fungal virulent factors during pathogenesis in the host. In this study, we aimed to isolate NRPS gene ofG. boninense strain UPMGB001 and investigate the role of this gene during G. boninense-oil palm … Continue reading Identification of non-ribosomal peptide synthetase in Ganoderma boninense

Iris germanica, a species with very high ornamental value, exhibits the strongest drought resistance among the species in the genus Iris, but the molecular mechanism underlying its drought resistance has not been evaluated. To investigate the gene expression profile changes exhibited by high-drought-resistant I. germanica under drought stress, 10 cultivars with excellent characteristics were included in pot experiments under drought stress conditions, and the changes in the chlorophyll … Continue reading Evaluation of drought resistance and transcriptome analysis for the identification of drought-responsive genes in Iris germanica

Cardamine enshiensis is a well-known selenium (Se)-hyperaccumulating plant. Se is an essential trace element associated with many health benefits. Despite its critical importance, genomic information of this species is limited. Here, we report a chromosome-level genome assembly of C. enshiensis, which consists of 443.4 Mb in 16 chromosomes with a scaffold N50 of 24 Mb. To elucidate the mechanism of Se tolerance and hyperaccumulation in C. enshiensis, we generated and … Continue reading The Cardamine enshiensis genome reveals whole genome duplication

Flowering is crucial to plant reproduction and controlled by multiple factors. However, the mechanisms underlying the regulation of flowering in perennial plants are still largely unknown. Here, we first report a super long blooming 1 (slb1) mutant of the relict tree Liriodendron chinensepossessing a prolonged blooming period of more than 5 months, in contrast to the 1 month blooming period in the wild type (WT). Phenotypic characterization showed … Continue reading Morphological, phenological, and transcriptional analyses provide insight into the diverse flowering traits

Understanding the fate of heterogenous herbicide resistant weed populations in response to management practices can help towards overcoming the resistance issues. We selected one pair of susceptible (S) and resistant (R) phenotypes (2B21-R vs 2B21-S and 2B37-R vs 2B37-S) separately from two glyphosate resistant heterogeneous populations (2B21 and 2B37) of Echinochloa colona and their fate and adaptive plasticity were evaluated after glyphosate application. Our study revealed the glyphosate … Continue reading Fate and adaptive plasticity of heterogeneous resistant population of Echinochloa colona