Khalid Anwar - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Khalid Anwar

Journal of the Brazilian Society of Mechanical Sciences and Engineering

Greenhouse gas emission from conventional energy system and growing demand for energy result in t... more Greenhouse gas emission from conventional energy system and growing demand for energy result in the use of renewable energies such as solar energy. This study aims at designing life-cycle assessment (LCA) of a standalone photovoltaic (PV) system to meet the electricity demand of building in the diverse climate of India using a theoretical and numerical approach. The electricity demand is estimated on the daily basis considering all the power consumption equipments and their operational hours. Then, the suitable components of the PV system are selected based on their specification and available rooftop space. In the LCA analysis, environmental as well as financial analysis of the PV system is performed. For the environmental assessment, carbon credits are evaluated, whereas internal rate of return (IRR), net present value (NPV), levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) and the payback period of the PV system are estimated for the financial evaluation with consideration of inflation rate and effective discount rate. The PV system is found to be economically feasible because the NPV of this project is positive. The entire solar PV system is also simulated using PVSyst software, and results such as economic feasibility, performance ratio, input/output diagram, incident energy and array output distribution are compared with the theoretical calculation. Moreover, losses at various stages, as well as the reliability of the PV system, are analyzed. The peak rating of the building came out to be 232.71 kWp. The energy payback time and LCOE for the PV system are 7.43 years and $0.076/kWh, respectively, with a life-cycle conversion efficiency of 0.069.

2018 International Conference and Utility Exhibition on Green Energy for Sustainable Development (ICUE), 2018

Prediction and assessment of wind speed are necessary prerequisites in the sitting and sizing of ... more Prediction and assessment of wind speed are necessary prerequisites in the sitting and sizing of wind power applications. In this study, an artificial neural network (ANN) model was developed for prediction of wind energy potential in Andhra Pradesh (AP) and Telangana state (TS), India. ANN models are ‘black-box’ modelling technique, with capability to perform nonlinear mapping of a multidimensional input space onto another multidimensional output space without the knowledge of the dynamics of the relationship between the input and output spaces. The geographical parameters (latitude, longitude and altitude) and the month of the year were used as input data, while the monthly mean wind speed was used as the output of the network. Geographical and meteorological data of 30 cities in AP and TS of 20 years (1995–2015) by the India meteorological department, Pune (IMD-Pune) database were used for the training and testing the network. The testing data were not used in the training of the...

Plant-Microbe Interactions in Agro-Ecological Perspectives, 2017

Plants constitute immense and diverse niches for endophytic organisms, and their associations are... more Plants constitute immense and diverse niches for endophytic organisms, and their associations are well reported by many researchers. Certain microorganisms like endophytes prevail in the interior portion of plants, like roots, shoots, leaves, and stems, and do not harm the host plant. Fungi pose symbiotic relationship with plants, showing diversity in enrichment of resources and habitats. Even though these plant microbial interactions were reported from ancient years, an understanding of the mechanisms enabling these microorganisms to interact with host plants is still a dilemma. Unrevealing such unknown interaction pathways and signaling would be a crucial step in biotechnology which would probably lead to the production of different unique and novel compounds. Such compound may have the ultimate role in various applications in future biotechnology. Similarly, the potential of many isolated fungal endophytes has also not been studied well. Hence, an attempt has been made to coordinate the possibilities of usage of isolated endophytes in this chapter. Their uniqueness and specificity were studied with solid-state fermentation and submerged fermentation at a wide range of pH and temperature and few secondary metabolites and industrially important enzymes; its various applications and the common fungi used for such studies have also been discussed in this chapter.

Fungal disease in crop plants from the past two decades has seen to be increasing which is recogn... more Fungal disease in crop plants from the past two decades has seen to be increasing which is recognized as a serious threat to food security worldwide. It is difficult for plant to survive under these unfavorable conditions which cause an unprecedented number of fungal and fungal-like diseases which are the most common kind of plant disease. Various approaches such as use of chemical pesticides and other synthetic molecules have been used to control the fungal infections in crop plants. Different transgenic plants have been developed by introducing various genes responsible for resistance in opposition to fungal pathogens. Genes of the enzymes responsible for cell wall degradation are frequently applied to generate transgenic plants for fungal resistance. This chapter mainly emphasizes on how transgenic approach helps to confer plant resistance toward fungal diseases.

Simple fabrication and integration of consecutive analysis system is a key feature for lab-on-a-c... more Simple fabrication and integration of consecutive analysis system is a key feature for lab-on-a-chip (LOC) device. Soft-lithography method is used to fabricate a poly-dimethylsiloxane (PDMS) based microfluidic system which is faster and less expensive than other conventional methods such as etching glass and silicon. Nanogap was generated between two microchannels simply by the breakdown of PDMS layer using electric shock, without using any stateof-art method. The device consists of two parts: Micro-mixer and Preconcentration for detection system. The Micromixer is passive and planer, which is easy to fabricate, is used for mixing the protein with their fluorescent conjugate. Consecutively, Preconcentration of protein is done based on electrokinetic trapping trapping of protein near the nanogap. This device can be used to bring the concentration within the detection limit, because the sensitivity of detection system is still restricted to detect target analyte with low concentration...

Plant Physiology and Biochemistry, 2021

In rice (Oryza sativa), Si nutrition is known to improve salinity tolerance; however, limited eff... more In rice (Oryza sativa), Si nutrition is known to improve salinity tolerance; however, limited efforts have been made to elucidate the underlying mechanism. Salt-Overly Sensitive (SOS) pathway contributes to salinity tolerance in plants in a major way which works primarily through Na+ exclusion from the cytosol. SOS1, a vital component of SOS pathway is a Na+/H+ antiporter that maintains ion homeostasis. In this study, we evaluated the effect of overexpression of Oryza sativa SOS1 (OsSOS1) in tobacco (cv. Petit Havana) and rice (cv. IR64) for modulating its response towards salinity further exploring its correlation with Si nutrition. OsSOS1 transgenic tobacco plants showed enhanced tolerance to salinity as evident by its high chlorophyll content and maintaining favorable ion homeostasis under salinity stress. Similarly, transgenic rice overexpressing OsSOS1 also showed improved salinity stress tolerance as shown by higher seed germination percentage, seedling survival and low Na+ accumulation under salinity stress. At their mature stage, compared with the non-transgenic plants, the transgenic rice plants showed better growth and maintained better photosynthetic efficiency with reduced chlorophyll loss under stress. Also, roots of transgenic rice plants showed reduced accumulation of Na+ leading to reduced oxidative damage and cell death under salinity stress which ultimately resulted in improved agronomic traits such as higher number of panicles and fertile spikelets per panicle. Si nutrition was found to improve the growth of salinity stressed OsSOS1 rice by upregulating the expression of Si transporters (Lsi1 and Lsi2) that leads to more uptake and accumulation of Si in the rice shoots. Metabolite profiling showed better stress regulatory machinery in the transgenic rice, since they maintained higher abundance of most of the osmolytes and free amino acids.

Journal of Experimental Botany, 2019

Marker-free transgenic lines of rice are developed with enhanced trehalose accumulation that is a... more Marker-free transgenic lines of rice are developed with enhanced trehalose accumulation that is associated with improved grain yield under salinity, sodicity, and drought stresses.

Scientific Reports, 2019

A correction to this article has been published and is linked from the HTML and PDF versions of ... more A correction to this article has been published and is linked from the HTML and PDF versions of this paper. The error has not been fixed in the paper.

Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part A: Journal of Power and Energy, 2019

Wind energy potential in India has so far not been evaluated state wise. Moreover, the prediction... more Wind energy potential in India has so far not been evaluated state wise. Moreover, the prediction and assessment of wind potential are difficult due to the complexity of its nature. Here, a parametric study is done for the better prediction of wind potential using generalized feed-forward with back-propagation neural networks. Effect of three meteorological parameters (pressure, relative humidity, and temperature) on the wind speed prediction is studied in southern states of India. The meteorological parameters taken here are monthly mean, measured at ground station. These data were obtained at 28 sites over a period of 20 years from the IMD, Pune. Three different architectures of artificial neural network model were designed, trained, and evaluated for the prediction of wind speed. All three models have been optimized for varying neurons in the hidden layer. To evaluate the developed artificial neural network model for test locations, mean absolute percentage error and mean squared...

Scientific reports, Jan 6, 2018

Cytoskeleton plays a vital role in stress tolerance; however, involvement of intermediate filamen... more Cytoskeleton plays a vital role in stress tolerance; however, involvement of intermediate filaments (IFs) in such a response remains elusive in crop plants. This study provides clear evidence about the unique involvement of IFs in cellular protection against abiotic stress in rice. Transcript abundance of Oryza sativa intermediate filament (OsIF) encoding gene showed 2-10 fold up-regulation under different abiotic stress. Overexpression of OsIF in transgenic rice enhanced tolerance to salinity and heat stress, while its knock-down (KD) rendered plants more sensitive thereby indicating the role of IFs in promoting survival under stress. Seeds of OsIF overexpression rice germinated normally in the presence of high salt, showed better growth, maintained chloroplast ultrastructure and favourable K/Na ratio than the wild type (WT) and KD plants. Analysis of photosynthesis and chlorophyll a fluorescence data suggested better performance of both photosystem I and II in the OsIF overexpress...

Scientific reports, Jan 11, 2018

A correction to this article has been published and is linked from the HTML and PDF versions of t... more A correction to this article has been published and is linked from the HTML and PDF versions of this paper. The error has been fixed in the paper.

Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.), 2017

Salinity and drought are interconnected, causing phenotypic, physiological, biochemical, and mole... more Salinity and drought are interconnected, causing phenotypic, physiological, biochemical, and molecular changes in a cell. These stresses are the major factors adversely affecting growth and productivity in cereals. Genetic engineering methods have advanced to enable development of genotypes with improved salinity and drought tolerance. The resulting transgenic plant produces a group of progenies which includes moderate to high-stress tolerant transgenic lines. Development of reproducible screening methods to identify high-stress tolerant germplasm under laboratory, greenhouse, or field conditions is must. Further, field level demonstration of improved phenotypes and yield under salinity and drought stress conditions is both challenging and expensive. Fast and efficient screening techniques that could be used to screen transgenic lines under greenhouse conditions, for salt and drought stress tolerance, may contribute toward the identification of promising lines for field conditions. ...

Scientific Reports, 2017

Saffron is one of the most expensive spices of the world. Since this spice is triploid and meiosi... more Saffron is one of the most expensive spices of the world. Since this spice is triploid and meiosis is unusual, it cannot reproduce sexually like other plants; rather, it is propagated vegetatively via an underground corm, which can withstand a long dry dormant period before sprouting. Thus, corms are indispensable to saffron propagation. To identify and analyse signature metabolites associated with the 'dormancy-sprouting' process, non-targeted GC-MS was performed at different stages of corm development. Comparative metabolite profiling reflected dissimilar profiles among the stages as portrayed by differential cluster patterns of metabolites in the PCA and PLS-DA analysis. Correlation analysis revealed the interdependencies of individual metabolites and metabolic pathway. At the onset of stage 2, characterized by the initiation and differentiation of leaf primordia, a shift from dormancy to active metabolism occurred as derived from the increased abundance of sugars and other metabolites involved in the tricarboxylic acid cycle, glycolytic, amino acid and fatty acid pathways. These changes contribute to sprouting and vegetative growth of the corm. The present study provides new insights into saffron corm composition and metabolite changes associated with various stages of corm development and may pave the way for achieving agronomical improvements in this economically important spice. Saffron (Crocus sativus L.) is one of the most expensive and elusive spices of the world, grown in areas where Mediterranean type of climate prevails. In India, large-scale cultivation is restricted to the state of Jammu and Kashmir, and this contributes significantly to the economy of the state 1, 2. It is mostly used as a food condiment with limited usage in textile or perfumery. Due to its analgesic and sedative properties, folk herbal practitioners have also used saffron for the treatment of several ailments 3, 4. Saffron is a triploid perennial sterile plant that can withstand dry dormant period, a characteristic attributed to its underground corm 5-7. Thus, corms are indispensable to saffron propagation, surviving for only a season and reproducing vegetatively into cormlets that ultimately develop into new plants. Saffron plants remain as corms at the start of the dry season (April-May, when the leaves begin to senesce and wither) until the end of summer (July), when the initiation of leaf primordia is observed 8, 9. Flower morphogenesis soon takes place and fully developed flower can be seen in the fields by the end of October. With the onset of sprouting, the corms become a source organ sustaining the growth of the newly developing corms 8. For the newly developed ones to produce flowers, corms should attain an appropriate size 10. Therefore, production of corms of adequate size is extremely important to ensure flower production. At the same time, determining the factors affecting the sprouting process is highly essential for corm and flower production 11. Apical buds formed on a mature saffron corm sprout in the subsequent season along with many other axillary dormant buds 12. Following the development of a few leaves, the axillary buds enter into a dormant stage. These axillary buds are believed to offer rapid recovery from damage to the plant and to adjust its growth in accordance with the environmental stimuli 10, 12. Current conventional practices allow production of only two to three corms per mother corm 13. Thus, an initial corm would require about 9-10 years to produce corms sufficient for sowing in one hectare of land 14. Besides the low multiplication rates, corm productivity and quality is further reduced by fungal diseases, thereby restraining the availability of the planting material. Erratic and scanty rainfall, which is distributed irregularly, further impose adverse effect on

Plant, cell & environment, Jan 24, 2017

High salinity is one of the major problems in crop productivity, affecting seed germination as we... more High salinity is one of the major problems in crop productivity, affecting seed germination as well as yield. In order to enhance tolerance of crops towards salinity, it is essential to understand the underlying physiological and molecular mechanisms. In this endeavor, study of contrasting genotypes of the same species differing in their response towards salinity stress can be very useful. In the present study, we have investigated temporal differences in morphological, physiological and proteome profiles of two contrasting genotypes of rice to understand the basis of salt tolerance. When compared to IR64 rice, Pokkali, the salt-tolerant wild genotype, has enhanced capacity to cope with stress, better growth rate and possesses efficient antioxidant system, as well as better photosynthetic machinery. Our proteome studies revealed a higher and an early abundance of proteins involved in stress tolerance and photosynthesis in Pokkali in comparison with IR64, which, in contrast, showed g...

Plant, cell & environment, Jan 20, 2017

Crop plants face a multitude of diverse abiotic and biotic stresses in the farmers' fields. A... more Crop plants face a multitude of diverse abiotic and biotic stresses in the farmers' fields. Although there now exists a considerable knowledge of the underlying mechanisms of response to individual stresses, the cross-talk between response pathways to various abiotic and biotic stresses remains enigmatic. Here, we investigated if the cytotoxic metabolite methylglyoxal (MG), excess of which is generated as a common consequence of many abiotic and biotic stresses, may serve as a key molecule linking responses to diverse stresses. For this, we generated transgenic rice plants overexpressing the entire two-step glyoxalase pathway for MG detoxification. Through assessment of various morphological, physiological, and agronomic parameters, we found that glyoxalase-overexpression imparts tolerance towards abiotic stresses like salinity, drought and heat, and also provides resistance towards damage caused by the sheath blight fungus (Rhizoctonia solani) toxin phenyl acetic acid. We show ...

Innovative Saline Agriculture, 2016

Salinity is one of the major environmental factors which limit the rice production worldwide. Ric... more Salinity is one of the major environmental factors which limit the rice production worldwide. Rice (Oryza sativa) is one of the major staple food crops for more than half of the world’s population in addition to one of the most salt-sensitive cereals. It is estimated that one fifth of the irrigated agriculture land is already affected by high soil salinity, which warrants innovations for the agricultural production in marginal saline lands. To overcome lower productivity, it is important to study the compounds which are the “by-products” of stress metabolism, stress signal transduction, or the molecules that are part of the acclimation response in crop plants. In this regard, “metabolomics” – the study of metabolites – may contribute significantly toward improving our understanding of the salinity stress response in plants. In the present chapter, we describe various targeted and nontargeted approaches as they have been used for the study of metabolites in various plant species in response to various abiotic stresses. One of the major conclusions, which can be drawn based on these studies, is that a large subset of sugars and amino acids are upregulated during salinity stress with a decrease in the levels of various organic acids. Under salinity stress, maintenance of cellular osmoticum by accumulation of a range of osmolytes seems to be a universal response in plants. We propose that the outcome of metabolomic studies in conjunction with other omics-based studies may pave way for dissecting out the complex traits such as salinity tolerance.

NeuroRehabilitation, 2009

To assess the validity and reliability of a Numeric Rating Scale (NRS) for the measurement of spa... more To assess the validity and reliability of a Numeric Rating Scale (NRS) for the measurement of spasticity in multiple sclerosis. Longitudinal study with multiple comparators over two clinic visits. Rehabilitation Centre in the North East of England, UK. A total of thirty-five patients, with a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis (MS) that were attending a rehabilitation clinic. The test/re-test reliability of the NRS showed there was a high correlation between the two visits (r = 0.672). Construct validity was assessed by examining the relationship between the mean spasticity NRS and each of the other spasticity assessment tools. There was a statistically significant correlation between subject's mean NRS diary scores and the Modified Ashworth Scale scores at both visits (Visit 1, r = 0.459, p = 0.0056; Visit 2, r = 0.446, p = 0.0106). There was a moderate, statistically significant correlation between the mean NRS diary scores and the Tardieu Scale (Visit 1, r = 0.429, p = 0.0113; Vi...

Investigative ophthalmology & visual science, 2000

A two-generation consanguineous Pakistani family with autosomal recessive Leber congenital amauro... more A two-generation consanguineous Pakistani family with autosomal recessive Leber congenital amaurosis (LCA, MIM 204,000) and keratoconus was identified. All affected individuals have bilateral keratoconus and congenital pigmentary retinopathy. The goal of this study was to link the disease phenotype in this family. Genomic DNA was amplified across the polymorphic microsatellite poly-CA regions identified by markers. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) products were separated by nondenaturing polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. Alleles were assigned to individuals, which allowed calculation of LOD scores using the Cyrillic and MLINK software program. The retinal guanylate cyclase (RETGC-1, GDB symbol GUC2D) and pigment epithelium-derived factor (PEDF) genes were analyzed by heteroduplex analysis and direct sequencing for mutations in diseased individuals. Based on a whole genome linkage analysis the first locus for this combined phenotype has been mapped to chromosome 17p13. Linkage analy...

Investigative ophthalmology & visual science, 2000

To map the disease locus of a two-generation, consanguineous Pakistani family with autosomal rece... more To map the disease locus of a two-generation, consanguineous Pakistani family with autosomal recessive cone-rod dystrophy (arCRD). All affected individuals had night blindness, deterioration of central vision, photophobia, epiphora in bright light, and problems with color distinction. Fundoscopy revealed marked macular degeneration and attenuation of retinal vessels. Mild pigmentary changes were present in the periphery. Genomic DNA was amplified across the polymorphic microsatellite poly-CA regions identified by markers. Alleles were assigned to individuals that allowed calculation of LOD scores using the Cyrillic (Cherwell Scientific, Oxford, UK) and MLINK (accessed from ftp://linkage. rockefeller.edu/softeware/linkage/) software programs. The cellular retinoic acid-binding protein 2 (CRABP2), cone transducin alpha-subunit (GNAT2), potassium inwardly rectifying channel, subfamily J, member 10 (KCNJ10), genes were analyzed by heteroduplex analysis and direct sequencing for mutation...

Journal of the Brazilian Society of Mechanical Sciences and Engineering

Greenhouse gas emission from conventional energy system and growing demand for energy result in t... more Greenhouse gas emission from conventional energy system and growing demand for energy result in the use of renewable energies such as solar energy. This study aims at designing life-cycle assessment (LCA) of a standalone photovoltaic (PV) system to meet the electricity demand of building in the diverse climate of India using a theoretical and numerical approach. The electricity demand is estimated on the daily basis considering all the power consumption equipments and their operational hours. Then, the suitable components of the PV system are selected based on their specification and available rooftop space. In the LCA analysis, environmental as well as financial analysis of the PV system is performed. For the environmental assessment, carbon credits are evaluated, whereas internal rate of return (IRR), net present value (NPV), levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) and the payback period of the PV system are estimated for the financial evaluation with consideration of inflation rate and effective discount rate. The PV system is found to be economically feasible because the NPV of this project is positive. The entire solar PV system is also simulated using PVSyst software, and results such as economic feasibility, performance ratio, input/output diagram, incident energy and array output distribution are compared with the theoretical calculation. Moreover, losses at various stages, as well as the reliability of the PV system, are analyzed. The peak rating of the building came out to be 232.71 kWp. The energy payback time and LCOE for the PV system are 7.43 years and $0.076/kWh, respectively, with a life-cycle conversion efficiency of 0.069.

2018 International Conference and Utility Exhibition on Green Energy for Sustainable Development (ICUE), 2018

Prediction and assessment of wind speed are necessary prerequisites in the sitting and sizing of ... more Prediction and assessment of wind speed are necessary prerequisites in the sitting and sizing of wind power applications. In this study, an artificial neural network (ANN) model was developed for prediction of wind energy potential in Andhra Pradesh (AP) and Telangana state (TS), India. ANN models are ‘black-box’ modelling technique, with capability to perform nonlinear mapping of a multidimensional input space onto another multidimensional output space without the knowledge of the dynamics of the relationship between the input and output spaces. The geographical parameters (latitude, longitude and altitude) and the month of the year were used as input data, while the monthly mean wind speed was used as the output of the network. Geographical and meteorological data of 30 cities in AP and TS of 20 years (1995–2015) by the India meteorological department, Pune (IMD-Pune) database were used for the training and testing the network. The testing data were not used in the training of the...

Plant-Microbe Interactions in Agro-Ecological Perspectives, 2017

Plants constitute immense and diverse niches for endophytic organisms, and their associations are... more Plants constitute immense and diverse niches for endophytic organisms, and their associations are well reported by many researchers. Certain microorganisms like endophytes prevail in the interior portion of plants, like roots, shoots, leaves, and stems, and do not harm the host plant. Fungi pose symbiotic relationship with plants, showing diversity in enrichment of resources and habitats. Even though these plant microbial interactions were reported from ancient years, an understanding of the mechanisms enabling these microorganisms to interact with host plants is still a dilemma. Unrevealing such unknown interaction pathways and signaling would be a crucial step in biotechnology which would probably lead to the production of different unique and novel compounds. Such compound may have the ultimate role in various applications in future biotechnology. Similarly, the potential of many isolated fungal endophytes has also not been studied well. Hence, an attempt has been made to coordinate the possibilities of usage of isolated endophytes in this chapter. Their uniqueness and specificity were studied with solid-state fermentation and submerged fermentation at a wide range of pH and temperature and few secondary metabolites and industrially important enzymes; its various applications and the common fungi used for such studies have also been discussed in this chapter.

Fungal disease in crop plants from the past two decades has seen to be increasing which is recogn... more Fungal disease in crop plants from the past two decades has seen to be increasing which is recognized as a serious threat to food security worldwide. It is difficult for plant to survive under these unfavorable conditions which cause an unprecedented number of fungal and fungal-like diseases which are the most common kind of plant disease. Various approaches such as use of chemical pesticides and other synthetic molecules have been used to control the fungal infections in crop plants. Different transgenic plants have been developed by introducing various genes responsible for resistance in opposition to fungal pathogens. Genes of the enzymes responsible for cell wall degradation are frequently applied to generate transgenic plants for fungal resistance. This chapter mainly emphasizes on how transgenic approach helps to confer plant resistance toward fungal diseases.

Simple fabrication and integration of consecutive analysis system is a key feature for lab-on-a-c... more Simple fabrication and integration of consecutive analysis system is a key feature for lab-on-a-chip (LOC) device. Soft-lithography method is used to fabricate a poly-dimethylsiloxane (PDMS) based microfluidic system which is faster and less expensive than other conventional methods such as etching glass and silicon. Nanogap was generated between two microchannels simply by the breakdown of PDMS layer using electric shock, without using any stateof-art method. The device consists of two parts: Micro-mixer and Preconcentration for detection system. The Micromixer is passive and planer, which is easy to fabricate, is used for mixing the protein with their fluorescent conjugate. Consecutively, Preconcentration of protein is done based on electrokinetic trapping trapping of protein near the nanogap. This device can be used to bring the concentration within the detection limit, because the sensitivity of detection system is still restricted to detect target analyte with low concentration...

Plant Physiology and Biochemistry, 2021

In rice (Oryza sativa), Si nutrition is known to improve salinity tolerance; however, limited eff... more In rice (Oryza sativa), Si nutrition is known to improve salinity tolerance; however, limited efforts have been made to elucidate the underlying mechanism. Salt-Overly Sensitive (SOS) pathway contributes to salinity tolerance in plants in a major way which works primarily through Na+ exclusion from the cytosol. SOS1, a vital component of SOS pathway is a Na+/H+ antiporter that maintains ion homeostasis. In this study, we evaluated the effect of overexpression of Oryza sativa SOS1 (OsSOS1) in tobacco (cv. Petit Havana) and rice (cv. IR64) for modulating its response towards salinity further exploring its correlation with Si nutrition. OsSOS1 transgenic tobacco plants showed enhanced tolerance to salinity as evident by its high chlorophyll content and maintaining favorable ion homeostasis under salinity stress. Similarly, transgenic rice overexpressing OsSOS1 also showed improved salinity stress tolerance as shown by higher seed germination percentage, seedling survival and low Na+ accumulation under salinity stress. At their mature stage, compared with the non-transgenic plants, the transgenic rice plants showed better growth and maintained better photosynthetic efficiency with reduced chlorophyll loss under stress. Also, roots of transgenic rice plants showed reduced accumulation of Na+ leading to reduced oxidative damage and cell death under salinity stress which ultimately resulted in improved agronomic traits such as higher number of panicles and fertile spikelets per panicle. Si nutrition was found to improve the growth of salinity stressed OsSOS1 rice by upregulating the expression of Si transporters (Lsi1 and Lsi2) that leads to more uptake and accumulation of Si in the rice shoots. Metabolite profiling showed better stress regulatory machinery in the transgenic rice, since they maintained higher abundance of most of the osmolytes and free amino acids.

Journal of Experimental Botany, 2019

Marker-free transgenic lines of rice are developed with enhanced trehalose accumulation that is a... more Marker-free transgenic lines of rice are developed with enhanced trehalose accumulation that is associated with improved grain yield under salinity, sodicity, and drought stresses.

Scientific Reports, 2019

A correction to this article has been published and is linked from the HTML and PDF versions of ... more A correction to this article has been published and is linked from the HTML and PDF versions of this paper. The error has not been fixed in the paper.

Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part A: Journal of Power and Energy, 2019

Wind energy potential in India has so far not been evaluated state wise. Moreover, the prediction... more Wind energy potential in India has so far not been evaluated state wise. Moreover, the prediction and assessment of wind potential are difficult due to the complexity of its nature. Here, a parametric study is done for the better prediction of wind potential using generalized feed-forward with back-propagation neural networks. Effect of three meteorological parameters (pressure, relative humidity, and temperature) on the wind speed prediction is studied in southern states of India. The meteorological parameters taken here are monthly mean, measured at ground station. These data were obtained at 28 sites over a period of 20 years from the IMD, Pune. Three different architectures of artificial neural network model were designed, trained, and evaluated for the prediction of wind speed. All three models have been optimized for varying neurons in the hidden layer. To evaluate the developed artificial neural network model for test locations, mean absolute percentage error and mean squared...

Scientific reports, Jan 6, 2018

Cytoskeleton plays a vital role in stress tolerance; however, involvement of intermediate filamen... more Cytoskeleton plays a vital role in stress tolerance; however, involvement of intermediate filaments (IFs) in such a response remains elusive in crop plants. This study provides clear evidence about the unique involvement of IFs in cellular protection against abiotic stress in rice. Transcript abundance of Oryza sativa intermediate filament (OsIF) encoding gene showed 2-10 fold up-regulation under different abiotic stress. Overexpression of OsIF in transgenic rice enhanced tolerance to salinity and heat stress, while its knock-down (KD) rendered plants more sensitive thereby indicating the role of IFs in promoting survival under stress. Seeds of OsIF overexpression rice germinated normally in the presence of high salt, showed better growth, maintained chloroplast ultrastructure and favourable K/Na ratio than the wild type (WT) and KD plants. Analysis of photosynthesis and chlorophyll a fluorescence data suggested better performance of both photosystem I and II in the OsIF overexpress...

Scientific reports, Jan 11, 2018

A correction to this article has been published and is linked from the HTML and PDF versions of t... more A correction to this article has been published and is linked from the HTML and PDF versions of this paper. The error has been fixed in the paper.

Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.), 2017

Salinity and drought are interconnected, causing phenotypic, physiological, biochemical, and mole... more Salinity and drought are interconnected, causing phenotypic, physiological, biochemical, and molecular changes in a cell. These stresses are the major factors adversely affecting growth and productivity in cereals. Genetic engineering methods have advanced to enable development of genotypes with improved salinity and drought tolerance. The resulting transgenic plant produces a group of progenies which includes moderate to high-stress tolerant transgenic lines. Development of reproducible screening methods to identify high-stress tolerant germplasm under laboratory, greenhouse, or field conditions is must. Further, field level demonstration of improved phenotypes and yield under salinity and drought stress conditions is both challenging and expensive. Fast and efficient screening techniques that could be used to screen transgenic lines under greenhouse conditions, for salt and drought stress tolerance, may contribute toward the identification of promising lines for field conditions. ...

Scientific Reports, 2017

Saffron is one of the most expensive spices of the world. Since this spice is triploid and meiosi... more Saffron is one of the most expensive spices of the world. Since this spice is triploid and meiosis is unusual, it cannot reproduce sexually like other plants; rather, it is propagated vegetatively via an underground corm, which can withstand a long dry dormant period before sprouting. Thus, corms are indispensable to saffron propagation. To identify and analyse signature metabolites associated with the 'dormancy-sprouting' process, non-targeted GC-MS was performed at different stages of corm development. Comparative metabolite profiling reflected dissimilar profiles among the stages as portrayed by differential cluster patterns of metabolites in the PCA and PLS-DA analysis. Correlation analysis revealed the interdependencies of individual metabolites and metabolic pathway. At the onset of stage 2, characterized by the initiation and differentiation of leaf primordia, a shift from dormancy to active metabolism occurred as derived from the increased abundance of sugars and other metabolites involved in the tricarboxylic acid cycle, glycolytic, amino acid and fatty acid pathways. These changes contribute to sprouting and vegetative growth of the corm. The present study provides new insights into saffron corm composition and metabolite changes associated with various stages of corm development and may pave the way for achieving agronomical improvements in this economically important spice. Saffron (Crocus sativus L.) is one of the most expensive and elusive spices of the world, grown in areas where Mediterranean type of climate prevails. In India, large-scale cultivation is restricted to the state of Jammu and Kashmir, and this contributes significantly to the economy of the state 1, 2. It is mostly used as a food condiment with limited usage in textile or perfumery. Due to its analgesic and sedative properties, folk herbal practitioners have also used saffron for the treatment of several ailments 3, 4. Saffron is a triploid perennial sterile plant that can withstand dry dormant period, a characteristic attributed to its underground corm 5-7. Thus, corms are indispensable to saffron propagation, surviving for only a season and reproducing vegetatively into cormlets that ultimately develop into new plants. Saffron plants remain as corms at the start of the dry season (April-May, when the leaves begin to senesce and wither) until the end of summer (July), when the initiation of leaf primordia is observed 8, 9. Flower morphogenesis soon takes place and fully developed flower can be seen in the fields by the end of October. With the onset of sprouting, the corms become a source organ sustaining the growth of the newly developing corms 8. For the newly developed ones to produce flowers, corms should attain an appropriate size 10. Therefore, production of corms of adequate size is extremely important to ensure flower production. At the same time, determining the factors affecting the sprouting process is highly essential for corm and flower production 11. Apical buds formed on a mature saffron corm sprout in the subsequent season along with many other axillary dormant buds 12. Following the development of a few leaves, the axillary buds enter into a dormant stage. These axillary buds are believed to offer rapid recovery from damage to the plant and to adjust its growth in accordance with the environmental stimuli 10, 12. Current conventional practices allow production of only two to three corms per mother corm 13. Thus, an initial corm would require about 9-10 years to produce corms sufficient for sowing in one hectare of land 14. Besides the low multiplication rates, corm productivity and quality is further reduced by fungal diseases, thereby restraining the availability of the planting material. Erratic and scanty rainfall, which is distributed irregularly, further impose adverse effect on

Plant, cell & environment, Jan 24, 2017

High salinity is one of the major problems in crop productivity, affecting seed germination as we... more High salinity is one of the major problems in crop productivity, affecting seed germination as well as yield. In order to enhance tolerance of crops towards salinity, it is essential to understand the underlying physiological and molecular mechanisms. In this endeavor, study of contrasting genotypes of the same species differing in their response towards salinity stress can be very useful. In the present study, we have investigated temporal differences in morphological, physiological and proteome profiles of two contrasting genotypes of rice to understand the basis of salt tolerance. When compared to IR64 rice, Pokkali, the salt-tolerant wild genotype, has enhanced capacity to cope with stress, better growth rate and possesses efficient antioxidant system, as well as better photosynthetic machinery. Our proteome studies revealed a higher and an early abundance of proteins involved in stress tolerance and photosynthesis in Pokkali in comparison with IR64, which, in contrast, showed g...

Plant, cell & environment, Jan 20, 2017

Crop plants face a multitude of diverse abiotic and biotic stresses in the farmers' fields. A... more Crop plants face a multitude of diverse abiotic and biotic stresses in the farmers' fields. Although there now exists a considerable knowledge of the underlying mechanisms of response to individual stresses, the cross-talk between response pathways to various abiotic and biotic stresses remains enigmatic. Here, we investigated if the cytotoxic metabolite methylglyoxal (MG), excess of which is generated as a common consequence of many abiotic and biotic stresses, may serve as a key molecule linking responses to diverse stresses. For this, we generated transgenic rice plants overexpressing the entire two-step glyoxalase pathway for MG detoxification. Through assessment of various morphological, physiological, and agronomic parameters, we found that glyoxalase-overexpression imparts tolerance towards abiotic stresses like salinity, drought and heat, and also provides resistance towards damage caused by the sheath blight fungus (Rhizoctonia solani) toxin phenyl acetic acid. We show ...

Innovative Saline Agriculture, 2016

Salinity is one of the major environmental factors which limit the rice production worldwide. Ric... more Salinity is one of the major environmental factors which limit the rice production worldwide. Rice (Oryza sativa) is one of the major staple food crops for more than half of the world’s population in addition to one of the most salt-sensitive cereals. It is estimated that one fifth of the irrigated agriculture land is already affected by high soil salinity, which warrants innovations for the agricultural production in marginal saline lands. To overcome lower productivity, it is important to study the compounds which are the “by-products” of stress metabolism, stress signal transduction, or the molecules that are part of the acclimation response in crop plants. In this regard, “metabolomics” – the study of metabolites – may contribute significantly toward improving our understanding of the salinity stress response in plants. In the present chapter, we describe various targeted and nontargeted approaches as they have been used for the study of metabolites in various plant species in response to various abiotic stresses. One of the major conclusions, which can be drawn based on these studies, is that a large subset of sugars and amino acids are upregulated during salinity stress with a decrease in the levels of various organic acids. Under salinity stress, maintenance of cellular osmoticum by accumulation of a range of osmolytes seems to be a universal response in plants. We propose that the outcome of metabolomic studies in conjunction with other omics-based studies may pave way for dissecting out the complex traits such as salinity tolerance.

NeuroRehabilitation, 2009

To assess the validity and reliability of a Numeric Rating Scale (NRS) for the measurement of spa... more To assess the validity and reliability of a Numeric Rating Scale (NRS) for the measurement of spasticity in multiple sclerosis. Longitudinal study with multiple comparators over two clinic visits. Rehabilitation Centre in the North East of England, UK. A total of thirty-five patients, with a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis (MS) that were attending a rehabilitation clinic. The test/re-test reliability of the NRS showed there was a high correlation between the two visits (r = 0.672). Construct validity was assessed by examining the relationship between the mean spasticity NRS and each of the other spasticity assessment tools. There was a statistically significant correlation between subject's mean NRS diary scores and the Modified Ashworth Scale scores at both visits (Visit 1, r = 0.459, p = 0.0056; Visit 2, r = 0.446, p = 0.0106). There was a moderate, statistically significant correlation between the mean NRS diary scores and the Tardieu Scale (Visit 1, r = 0.429, p = 0.0113; Vi...

Investigative ophthalmology & visual science, 2000

A two-generation consanguineous Pakistani family with autosomal recessive Leber congenital amauro... more A two-generation consanguineous Pakistani family with autosomal recessive Leber congenital amaurosis (LCA, MIM 204,000) and keratoconus was identified. All affected individuals have bilateral keratoconus and congenital pigmentary retinopathy. The goal of this study was to link the disease phenotype in this family. Genomic DNA was amplified across the polymorphic microsatellite poly-CA regions identified by markers. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) products were separated by nondenaturing polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. Alleles were assigned to individuals, which allowed calculation of LOD scores using the Cyrillic and MLINK software program. The retinal guanylate cyclase (RETGC-1, GDB symbol GUC2D) and pigment epithelium-derived factor (PEDF) genes were analyzed by heteroduplex analysis and direct sequencing for mutations in diseased individuals. Based on a whole genome linkage analysis the first locus for this combined phenotype has been mapped to chromosome 17p13. Linkage analy...

Investigative ophthalmology & visual science, 2000

To map the disease locus of a two-generation, consanguineous Pakistani family with autosomal rece... more To map the disease locus of a two-generation, consanguineous Pakistani family with autosomal recessive cone-rod dystrophy (arCRD). All affected individuals had night blindness, deterioration of central vision, photophobia, epiphora in bright light, and problems with color distinction. Fundoscopy revealed marked macular degeneration and attenuation of retinal vessels. Mild pigmentary changes were present in the periphery. Genomic DNA was amplified across the polymorphic microsatellite poly-CA regions identified by markers. Alleles were assigned to individuals that allowed calculation of LOD scores using the Cyrillic (Cherwell Scientific, Oxford, UK) and MLINK (accessed from ftp://linkage. rockefeller.edu/softeware/linkage/) software programs. The cellular retinoic acid-binding protein 2 (CRABP2), cone transducin alpha-subunit (GNAT2), potassium inwardly rectifying channel, subfamily J, member 10 (KCNJ10), genes were analyzed by heteroduplex analysis and direct sequencing for mutation...