3^rd International Conference on Plant Science & Physiology May 21-22, 2018 Osaka, Japan

Biography:

Sharma had PhD (Radiation Biology) from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and Post-Doctoral Research from Department of Biochemistry, Brunel University, London. He was a Visiting Professor at National Institute of Food and Nutrition Research, Rome. Recently retired as Professor (HAG), he continues as UGC-BSR Faculty Fellow (Life Sciences) at Manipur University. He has 88 publications in international journals, supervised 20 PhDs, participated in over 75 conferences and delivered 24 invited lectures in conferences held in USA, UK, France, China, Netherlands, Italy, Singapore, Thailand and India. He is a reviewer of 12 international journals of repute. His research areas are plant biotechnology, food irradiation, free radicals and dietary antioxidants. He is a Member, Scientific Panel on GMOs and Foods, Food Safety & Standard Authority of India, Government of India.

Abstract:

The broad field of free radicals and antioxidants covers an emerging area known as redox biology and has been perceived as focusing around the use of antioxidant supplements to prevent a variety of human diseases. During the events of evolution, the emergence of photosynthetic system in aerobic organisms, plants in particular, generates reactive oxygen species and has opened up a paradoxical situation compelling life confront hostile environment and to be able to adapt, the redox processes have become increasingly significant. Antioxidants/free radicals permeate the entire living systems in the cellular milieu. Life is a balance between the two like a tug-of-war: Antioxidants serve to decrease the levels of free radicals permitting them to perform useful biological functions without causing much damage. However, some damages are inevitable requiring repair systems to maintain cellular integrity and viability. Reactive oxygen species are all over the cellular environment in aerobic microbes, plants and animals. These species protect life from various types of infections and involve in critical signaling pathways. Eventually, these species also often kill cells, tissues and organs in the end. The continual damages by these species, failing repair pathways, can cause age-related tumor development, neuro-degenerative diseases and several human disorders. It would have been wonderful if life had evolved entirely in the anaerobic environment, in which case, the life-spans would have been much longer and diseases would have rarely occurred. Interestingly various medicinal plants possessing bio-active molecules can prevent human diseases. These molecules having diverse chemical structures possess high antioxidant profiles and encounter damaging radical species very efficiently at time scales of micro, nano, pico and femto seconds in cellular environment thereby preventing molecular damages to DNA and membranes. In this presentation, some of these aspects shall be discussed with reference to a few medicinal plants such as turmeric and tropical ginger.

Biography:

A Hemantaranjan, Professor, has his expertise in physiology of abiotic stresses and micronutrients. His significantly established doses of salicylic acid, zinc, brassinolide and paclobutrazol in stress mitigation are commendable. He elucidated several facts of underlying mechanisms for stress tolerance in crops after 39 years of research experience; Guiding 13 Ph.D.; has 30 years of post-graduate teaching experience; several years of administrative experience  in elite Central University. Published over 135 of his research papers and review articles in journals of international repute including proceedings of international/national symposia, recurrently cited world over especially in international journals, biological reviews including Annual Review of Plant Physiology and Books. Editor in Chief of the UGC Approved International Treatise Series on Advances in Plant Physiology to publish 17 volumes till date. Honoured with Agricultural Excellence Award, 2013 and Life Time Achievement Award, 2014; Member, Editorial Boards and reviewer of 16 international journals; delivering Guest Lectures/Keynote Address.

 

Abstract:

Sustained self-sufficiency and March towards food and nutritional security depend on crop improvement in rapidly limiting natural resources. Besides cereals, pulse production now needs understanding of intricate physiology by utilizing judiciously devised cutting edge technologies and consequently to develop climate resilient desirable genotypes with breeders and biotechnologists for relentlessly enhanced productivity. Abiotic stresses: drought, salinity, heat and flooding affect photosynthesis, nitrogen assimilation, protein synthesis, pollination and fertilization. In our experiments, seed hardened and foliage applied salicylic acid (SA) significantly alleviated salinity and drought in pea and chickpea respectively; brassinolide and micronutrient zinc individually mitigated salinity, whereas paclobutrazol alleviated harmful effects of flash flooding in mungbean by producing aerial roots with initiating arenchymatous tissue in roots. SA @ 1.0 to 1.5 mM; brassinolide @ 0.05mM and paclobutrazol @ 10 ppm provided protection against stresses (drought, salinity, heat and flash flooding) at critical developmental stages of seedling growth, reproduction (pollen formation, pollen, germination, fertilization) and seed development. Encouraging findings regarding SA induced micronutrients uptake with improved cellular metabolism through improved water use efficiency, enhanced antioxidative ezymes activity and synthesis of antioxidants of compatible nature under abiotic stresses were recorded, which helped in elucidating the underlying mechanisms for tolerance in crop plants. Conclusion and Significance: Stress tolerance may be achieved by the maintenance, activation, and enhanced function of physiological systems that are especially sensitive to disruption by increased levels of stress. Information on stress-inducible genes, genetic control of stress responses and signaling pathways offer a chance for creating a clearer picture of plant responses and adaptations to different stresses.

 

Biography:

Dr. Taek-Ryoun Kwon is a principal research scientist for the National Institute of Agricultural Sciences, South Korea. He is working on the research project focusing on the development of drought and salt tolerances in crop plant using physiological and biochemical markers. Recently, his group has installed a high-throughput phenotyping facility with a mega data obtained from the phenotyping activities. Now his primary concern is to utilize the facility to screen the tolerances of crop plants with a novel approaches like infra-red thermography. 

Abstract:

Plant phenomics is an area of biology dealing with the analysis of phenotypic traits in plants. It can be cointegrated with other omics like functional genomics, transcriptomics, and metabolomics etc. Phenotypic traits are generated by images of RGB, hyperspectral, near-infrared, thermal, fluorescence imaging and so on. Characterized phenotypes can be revealed in various morphological and physiological measurements of size, growth pattern, biomass and color in plants. The image-base automated plant phenotyping is described as a high throughput plant facility. Despite its advantages like nondestructive phenotyping it has its own limitations such as plant’s complex architectures and environmental conditions at the time of image capture especially in the field. Phenomics generates a large number of images and metadata through phenotyping instruments, so there is a need for proper data processing and managements. Standardized data storage and sharing is also necessary for meaningful data acquisition along with statistical analysis. Processes of data management are largely consisted of data collection, storage, documentation, along with improvement of data quality. In future, plant phenomics must be developed efficiently to store, analyze, protect and share the acquired data. Modern high throughput plant phenotyping could be used effectively in plant improvement programs.to become trauma- informed that would help this recognition.

Biography:

The biochemical levels of total lipid, soluble sugar and reducing sugar in early germinating seeds collected from 3 trees of Albizia procera aged around 25 years were estimated from the 1^st day of germination till the 15^th day. With progression of germination, total lipid content decreased in all the 3 trees. No such continuous trend could be drawn regarding the levels of total soluble sugar and total reducing sugar when the results showed ups and downs in their concentrations at different days of germination. However, in both the cases, retaining a considerable level up to 12^th day of germination was noticed. The recorded results might be beneficial for further studies on the metabolic activities of germinating seeds in Albizia procera or related tree species.

 

Abstract:

Rupnarayan Sett has his intense interest in different facets of biotechnology, from mobilization of seed-reserves to alleviation of environmental problems. Started his career in the drug delivery systems, Rupnarayan has been able to stamp his imprint in different areas of life sciences, as per the demand and scope in his professional domains. Whatever he has done, he has a keen view of a biochemist to resolve the problem which rewarded him many successes.

 

Biography:

Professor emeritus, Dénes Dudits previously served as vice president of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and director general of the Biological Research Centre Szeged, Hungary. He graduated at the Agricultural University, and received the Ph.D. in plant genetics. After a visiting professorship in Boston, Harvard Medical School, he initiated the use of recombinant DNA technology in plant research in Hungary by cloning alfalfa histone genes and production of transgenic plants. His present interest is the development and use of genome editing tools for directed mutagenesis in plant research and breeding. He is member of Academia Europea and  EMBO.

Abstract:

Advancements in moving from random towards directed mutagenesis can revolutionize plant research and crop improvement.  In parallel with the rapid evolution of CRISPR/Cas9 tools with myriad of functionalities and capabilities, the chemically synthesized single stranded DNA oligonucleotides (SDOs) gain increasing significance as vectors to produce oligonucleotide-targeted nucleotide exchange (OTNE) at a specific site of plant genomic DNA. Furthermore, the combinatorial use of oligonucleotides with programmable nucleases became a routine in plant gene editing. In this overview, we analyze several major factors that can improve the efficiency of oligo-directed mutagenesis (ODM). For phenotypic assay of ODM, we use transgenic maize cell lines expressing the non-functional Green Fluorescent Protein (mGFP) gene carrying a TAG stop codon. In the ODM treated cells, nucleotide exchange in the stop codon (TAG) from T to G nucleotide that resulted in the restoration of GFP function. This test system allowed to compare SDO molecules with different size and chemical modifications. The ODM efficiency primarily depends on the uptake protocol. We use bombardment of SDO^GFP into maize cells, in addition, we have tested novel delivery methods to stimulate uptake into protoplasts. Experiments are in progress to compare ODM and CRISPR/Cas9 technologies in correction efficiency. As we showed, the open chromatin structure of recipient cells can increase the number of ODM events (Tiricz et.al 2017). Presently editing protocols are dependent on the in vitro tissue culture systems, where selection of edited cells with altered agronomic traits can be limited. Therefore, we test different co-editing systems with one selectable and one non-selectable marker by ODM and CRISPR/Cas9 technologies.  Based on the presented experimental findings and the published data one can conclude that DNA oligonucleotides (SDOs) play a central role in editing of plant genomes.

Biography:

Dr. Muhammad Mazhar Iqbal is working as District Head/Assistant Agricultural Chemist (Soil Fertility), Chiniot, Pakistan. He is a young dynamic team leader and performing all the key administrative management related to his office. His research, development and farmers friendly extension activities to-date have worth for local, national and international interests. He has won the HEC-Pakistan Indigenous Scholarship and foreign 6 months IRSIP at Ghent University Belgium during his PhD degree. He has enormous publications in journals of National and International repute. He is an active scout and regular member of Soil Science Society of Pakistan. He has also served the Department of Soil & Environmental Sciences, University of Sargodha as Assistant Professor. Due to his additional good work-done beyond the normal office working hours and even on holidays; he has been granted with special reward/honourarium by the Director General Agriculture (Research), Ayub Agricultural Research Institute, Agriculture Department, Government of Punjab-Pakistan.

Abstract:

Statement of the Problem: The plants can absorb Pb from leaf depositions that lead to elevated Pb concentration in plants even when there is a low level of Pb in soils and/or irrigation water. In urban and peri-urban agricultural areas, the valid assessment of low Pb accumulation by plant species/genotypes is necessary for the successful production of Pb safe food crops.

Methodology & Theoretical Orientation: A pot study was conducted to evaluate the effect of foliar application of Pb salts on growth, physiological processes and tissue concentration of Pb in rice. The present study was comprised of two factors: a) foliar application of Pb at 25 mg L^-1 as lead chloride (PbCl₂) and lead nitrate i.e., Pb(NO₃)₂, along with an uncontaminated control and b) fourteen rice genotypes, arranged in completely randomized block design each with three replications.

Findings: The results showed a devastating nature of Pb(NO₃)₂ treatment than PbCl₂ on growth such as plant height, straw dry matter and yield, and physiological attributes like photosynthetic rate, transpiration rate, stomatal conductance of rice genotypes. Among rice genotypes, with foliar Pb application, Shaheen Basmati and KS-282 showed better growth, yield and physiological attributes, low Pb concentration in rice straw and paddy.

Conclusion & Significance: These both rice genotypes were identified as a valuable resource that can be used by farmers or in advance rice breeding programs targeted to increased Pb tolerance. Regarding the additional practical significance, the present study was under taken to capitalize the differences in toxicities of foliar applied Pb salts on rice genotypes, considering various anthropogenic sources of Pb pollution with associated risks of accompanying anions like Cl^- and NO₃^- in the environment.