Annual Report - IHBT

GENOMICS AND PROTEOMICSPathway engineering and system biology approach towards homologous andheterologous expression of high-value phytoceuticals (artemisinin, picrosides,morphine, withanolides and podophyllotoxin)In a new study, transcriptome sequencing of may apple (Sinopodophyllum hexandrum) wascarried out using genome analyzer and bioinformatics. A total of 87786 de novo transcripts wereassembled. Of these, 56422 transcripts had significance in known biological processes. Similarly,in transcriptome analysis of picrorhiza, a total of 74336 transcripts were assembled.Assembling performance was also analyzed in response to k-mer size, wherein k-mer size of23mer was the best choice, as it had a balance between over- and under-represented transcriptnumbers, coverage, maximum length obtained and average transcript length.Molecular basis of winter dormancyIn studies on understanding molecular mechanism of winter dormancy (WD) of tea, downregulationof genes related to cell cycle, cell division and DNA processing was observed. However,stress-responsive genes, and genes encoding chaperons were up-regulated.In another study, the gene expressions were modulated in similar ways by high temperature (HT;25°C) during WD and PAG (period of active growth) (Fig. 8).Fig. 8 Expression of 27 genes in ‘two leaves and a bud’ harvested at different periods of growth. Green and redcolor indicates down and up-regulated genes, respectively12