Endolichenic fungi are microbes that inhabit healthy inner lichen tissues without any disease symptoms. They have been reported to produce new and interesting bioactive metabolites. In the present study, an endolichenic fungus frequently isolated from surface-sterilized lichen thallus of Parmelia caperata has been described. The fungus was identified as Aspergillus tubingensis based on morphological traits and ITS rDNA sequence. Crude metabolites extracted from the culture broth exhibited considerable antimicrobial activity against a panel of clinically significant human pathogens. The fungus showed optimum antimicrobial activity in PDB medium in day 7 of incubation period. PDB medium amended with 1 % NaCl and at alkaline pH was found to be optimal for antimicrobial metabolites production. Enhanced activity was observed when the fungus was exposed briefly to a heat shock of 60 °C during incubation. The metabolites showed optimum λ-max at 214 nm with an absorbance value of 1.589. Molecular characterization of the isolate was carried out by ITS phylogeny and ITS2 secondary structure analyses. The phylogenetic trees based on both ITS rDNA and ITS2 sequences showed the isolate within the clade A. tubingensis. Considering the ubiquity and ambiguity in identifying Aspergillus species of different lifestyles, a method to differentiate pathogenic and endophytic Aspergillus at species level was developed using ITS2 secondary structure analysis. The results showed common folding pattern in the secondary structures with a helix and a 5' dangling end found to be highly conserved. Certain features in the secondary structure like multi-bulges and a symmetric interior loop were observed to be unique which distinguish our isolate from other A. tubingensis.
The present work was undertaken to explore an effective biocontrol agent against the destructive black root rot disease of chickpea. We have used an efficient bacterial endophyte, CNE6, which can colonize in the chickpea root system, produce secondary metabolites and enzymes to degrade pathogenic cellular integrity, inhibit pathogenic establishment by rupturing biofilm formation, and induce host immunity upon treatment.
Glutinous Bora rice plays an important role in socio-economic and cultural livelihood of Boro tribes of Assam. However, neither systematic survey had been done, nor databanks are available on their detailed morpho-molecular characterization essential for breeding programme. Present study attempts to prepare a morphological database with molecular signature using a total of 22 Bora rice lines collected from upper Brahmaputra basin of Assam, which were phenotyped with 27 popular agro-morphological traits followed by marker based genotyping, sequence diversity study and expression profiling for selected genetic loci associated with low amylose content. Long day flowering and less number of tillers and panicles are the main discouraging traits of Bora rice that showed negative association with tiller length. Among the 8 different phenotypic markers established, anthocyanin pigment in different parts of the plant and availability of awn may be used as identifying criteria for selection of the hybrid lines introgress with “komal” trait. In marker based genotyping, all the studied marker loci were reported to be polymorphic with variable number of allelic forms and RM241 showed highest PIC value. In case of expression study, 5 days (after anthesis) old developing grains of selected Komal genotype (Aghani Bora) showed 90.9-fold down regulation of GBSSI (loci associated with amylose deposition in rice grain) with respect to the commonly grown popular rice (IR36). Phylogenetic relationship study with 5 different genomes (O rufipogon, O glaberima, O sativa japonica group, O sativa Indica group and IR36) based on sequence diversity of six major genetic loci (associated with starch deposition in endosperm) showed distinct relationship. Selected morpho-molecular markers (polymorphic between Bora and normal rice) were subjected to validation on hybrid population developed from selected Bora rice (Vogali Bora) and normal rice (IR36), which showed a promising response for use in marker assisted breeding program.
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