Life Sciences & Biotechnology
Title : | Deciphering the MAPK Pathway in Glycine max during Spodoptera litura – infestation |
Area of research : | Life Sciences & Biotechnology |
Principal Investigator : | Dr. Archana Singh, Hans Raj College, University Of Delhi |
Timeline Start Year : | 2022 |
Timeline End Year : | 2025 |
Contact info : | archanancpgr@gmail.com |
Equipments : | Workstation/server
Fluorescence Microscope
Refrigerated Centrifuge |
Details
Executive Summary : | Plants are often attacked by herbivores that cause biotic stress affecting their growth and development. To avoid such a high degree of damage, plants have evolved defensive strategies that allow activation of signalling pathways and differential expression of defense-related genes, proteins and metabolites. An important signalling pathway, which is operative during plant defense against pest attack is mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway. Three main components of the pathway are MAPK, MAPKK and MAPKKK and they transduce the signal in the order of MAPKKK to MAPKK and next to MAPK by successive phosphorylation. MAPKs contain a catalytic domain namely serine/threonine-specific and tyrosine-specific domain, which is responsible for the transfer of the phosphoryl group to serine, threonine, or tyrosine residues, which facilitate the transport of the extracellular signal from receptors to the nucleus for upregulation of defense-related genes. Due to their significance, MAPK pathway and their components have been identified and characterized in few plants, which revealed distinctness in the number of MAPK modules and interaction patterns between the modules amongst these species. A rapid induction of MAPKs during insect attack and their involvement in biosynthesis of jasmonic acid, ethylene and in differential expression of defensive genes and secondary metabolites during pest attack has been reported. MAPK signaling cascades during defense response against insect-infestation have mainly been studied in model plants only. Therefore, it is important to decipher MAPK pathway in crop plants as well. Glycine max, an important leguminous crop, is frequently challenged by S.litura-infestation affecting its fitness and productivity and can also lead to complete crop failure. Few molecular approaches have been taken up to study S. litura-soybean interaction but these studies were not focussed on MAPK signalling. This necessitates further study delineating MAPK cascades in soybean. The aim of this proposal is to decipher the MAPK pathway functional in soybean during plant defense against S. litura-infestation by in silico and in vitro approaches This would not only enhance our knowledge about signaling during insect-plant interaction, but the findings of this study would also enable researchers to find out the ways to generate crop plants with better tolerance against insects. |
Total Budget (INR): | 29,78,580 |
Organizations involved