The Role of Transposable Elements in Pongamia Unigenes and Protein Diversity.

Pongamia pinnata (also called Millettia pinnata), a non-edible oil yielding tree, is well known for its multipurpose benefits and acts as a potential source for medicine and biodiesel preparation. Due to increase in demand for cultivation, understanding of genetic diversity is an important parameter for further breeding and cultivation programme. Transposable elements (TEs) are a major component of plant genome but still, their evolutionary significance in Pongamia remains unexplored. In view to understand the role of TEs in genome diversity, Pongamia unigenes were screened for the presence of TE cassettes. Our analysis showed the presence of all categories of TE cassettes in unigenes with major contribution of long terminal repeat-retrotransposons towards unigene diversity. Interestingly, the insertion of some TEs was also observed in both organellar genomes. The study of insertion of TEs in coding sequence is of great interest as they may be responsible for protein diversity thereby influencing the phenotype. The present investigation confirms the exaptation phenomenon in pyruvate decarboxylase (PDC) gene where the entire exon sequence was derived from Ty3-gypsy like retrotransposon. The study of PDC protein revealed the translation of gypsy element into protein. Furthermore, the phylogenetic study confirmed the diversity in PDC gene due to insertion of the gypsy element, where the PDC genes with and without gypsy insertion were clustered separately.

Evidence for the involvement of nematocidal toxins of Purpureocillium lilacinum 6029 cultured on Karanja deoiled cake liquid medium.

In present study, in vitro nematocidal bioassays, FT-IR and HPLC analysis were employed to demonstrate the involvement of toxins of Purpureocillium lilacinum in killing root-knot nematodes (Meloidogyne incognita). During growth study, maximum mycelial biomass (10.52 g/l) in de-oiled Karanja cake medium was achieved on 8th day while complete mortality of nematodes was obtained by 6th day filtrate (FKSM). Maximum production of crude nematocidal toxin was recorded on 7th day suggesting that the toxin production was paralleled with growth of the fungus. The median lethal concentration (LC50) determined for the crude toxin from 6th day to 10th day ranged from 89.41 to 43.21 ppm. The median lethal time (LT50) for the crude toxin of FKSM was found to be 1.46 h. This is the first report of implementing a comparative infra-red spectroscopy coupled with HPLC analysis to predict the presence of nematocidal toxin in the fungal filtrate cultured on Karanja deoiled cake liquid medium.

Optimization of glucose formation in karanja biomass hydrolysis using Taguchi robust method.

The main objective of the present study is aimed to optimize the process parameters for the production of glucose from karanja seed cake. The Taguchi robust design method with L9 orthogonal array was applied to optimize hydrolysis reaction conditions and maximize sugar yield. Effect of temperature, acid concentration, and acid to cake weight ratio were considered as the main influencing factors which effects the percentage of glucose and amount of glucose formed. The experimental results indicated that acid concentration and liquid to solid ratio had a principal effect on the amount of glucose formed when compared to that of temperature. The maximum glucose formed was 245 g/kg extractive free cake.

Development of flow cytometric protocol for nuclear DNA content estimation and determination of chromosome number in Pongamia pinnata L., a valuable biodiesel plant.

The potentiality of Pongamia pinnata L. as a sustainable source of feedstock for the biodiesel industry is dependent on an extensive knowledge of the genome structure of the plant. Flow cytometry, with propidium iodide (PI) as the DNA stain, was used to estimate the nuclear DNA content of P. pinnata, with respect to Zea mays 'CE-777' as standard. The internal and pseudo-internal standardization was followed on account of the inhibitory effect of secondary compounds on PI intercalation. The antioxidants (PVP-40 and ß-mercaptoethanol) were added to the nuclear isolation buffer for the reduction of inhibitory effect of P. pinnata cytosol. Nuclear DNA content estimation was done for P. pinnata leaves from different altitudes (37-117 m height from sea level) of Assam. Flow cytometry analysis indicated that the nuclear DNA content of P. pinnata is 2.66 pg with predicted 1C value of 1,300 Mb using Z. mays as standard. Coefficient of variation in flow cytometric analysis was within the limit of 5 % indicating that the results were reliable. Somatic chromosome numbers were counted from root-tip cells and was found to be 2n = 22 corresponding to the diploid level (x = 11). A decreasing trend in the nuclear DNA content was observed for the species of different altitudes.

Batch adsorption studies for chromium removal.

The adsorption of hexavalent chromium (Cr (VI)) on pongamia (Pongamia pinnata) leaf powder was investigated in the present study. Crude pongamia leaf powder (CPLP) and nitric acid treated pongamia leaf powder (APLP) were used as adsorbents. CPLP did not show remarkable adsorption efficiency but APLP had good adsorption capacity and adsorption removal efficiency. The parameters studied included the contact time, initial solute concentration and pH. The optimum pH for removal of chromium was found to be 2 for both CPLP and APLP. The best contact time for maximum chromium adsorption was 165 minutes for CPLP and APLP. CPLP and APLP showed good adsorption capacity and adsorption removal efficiency at an initial chromium concentration of 5 mg/L. The adsorption was found to follow Langmuir and Freundlich isotherms for CPLP and APLP but they showed good curve fit for Freundlich isotherm.