Department of Biological Sciences

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Author: search.filters.author.Joshi, MukulHas files: No

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    Impact of climate change on soil health and nutrient cycling
    (CABI, 2025-03) Joshi, Mukul
    The soil environment is influenced by different parameters and processes including topography, climate and parent material throughout the landscape. Major soil properties including, (i) soil moisture which plays a fundamental role in interactions between the land and the atmosphere, (ii) soil respiration which is attributed by the soil carbon pool to the atmosphere, (iii) soil organic matter (SOM), and (iv) soil nutrient cycles which go hand-in-hand with ecological restoration practices, are affected by the soil ecosystem. Plant species play a crucial role in nutrient cycling in natural ecosystems, with plant growth, litter quality and herbivory affecting the rates of nutrient cycling. The diversity and activity of soil microorganisms are essential for sustainable agriculture, and organic farming and tillage can improve soil health. Cycling nutrients, including nitrogen and phosphorus, is a vital ecosystem service that incorporates reusing agricultural and municipal organic residues. Soil quality is not a constant value for nutrient cycling or other soil functions, as soil properties can simultaneously enhance or weaken the performance of one or more functions depending on prevailing climatic conditions, and evaluations must be site-specific. Soil health is crucial in delivering various ecosystem services, such as sustaining water quality and plant productivity, controlling soil nutrient recycling and decomposition, and reducing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. This chapter focuses on the effects of climate change on soil health and nutrient cycling, leading to variations in plant productivity.
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    Advances in using non-thermal plasmas for healthier crop production: toward pesticide and chemical fertilizer-free agriculture
    (Springer, 2025-04) Joshi, Mukul
    There is an urgent need to transform agricultural practices to meet the challenges of sustainable food production amidst global population growth and environmental degradation. Traditional crop production methods heavily rely on pesticides and synthetic fertilizers, which pose significant risks to human health, disrupt ecosystems, and contribute to environmental pollution. Moreover, these methods are increasingly unsustainable due to rising costs and diminishing effectiveness, evolving pest resistance, and climate change impacts. Recently, non-thermal plasma (NTP) technology has emerged as a promising alternative for seed treatment in agriculture. NTP uses low-temperature plasma to modify seed surfaces, enhancing germination, vigor, and overall plant growth. Studies have demonstrated that NTP treatment improves nutrient uptake, increases disease resistance, and reduces the reliance on chemical inputs (pesticides and fertilizers), thereby promoting pesticide and chemical fertilizer-free agriculture. This paper explores recent research advancements in NTP seed treatment and its potential applications in sustainable agriculture. By exploring the mechanisms underlying the NTP effects on seed physiology, the paper provides a comprehensive understanding of how this technology can contribute to sustainable crop production. Furthermore, the paper discusses the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and challenges associated with the potential large-scale use of low-temperature plasmas in agriculture, aiming to accelerate the adoption of NTP and its commercialization in the agro-food industries. Overall, the goal of this paper is to highlight the transformative potential of NTP seed treatment in achieving healthier crop production that is environmentally friendly, economically viable, and capable of meeting the food demands of a growing global population.
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    Transcriptomic profiling of desert tree Prosopis cineraria under heat stress reveals potential role of multiple gene families in its high thermotolerance
    (2025) Joshi, Mukul
    The static nature of plants restrains their potential to evade heat stress and requires them to withstand stress through inherent defence abilities. Prosopis cineraria is a leguminous phreatophyte distributed across arid and semi-arid regions of India and can tolerate very high temperatures due to its adaptive physiological and biochemical mechanisms. Therefore, P. cineraria represents a repository of genes for abiotic stress tolerance. Two-months-old P. cineraria plants were subjected to heat stress at two different temperature regimes and transcriptome sequencing was performed to identify differentially expressed genes (DEGs). A total of 1151 and 1562 DEGs were observed in response to 45℃ and 55℃ heat stress compared to control, respectively, indicating that 55℃ treatment has a pronounced effect on P. cineraria. The transcriptomic data highlighted the potential role of multiple gene families and their interactions for high thermotolerance of P. cineraria. The expression of a few representative heat stress-responsive genes was validated with real-time qPCR. The in-depth bioinformatic analysis provided the detailed transcriptome profiling, supported by its validation, and new insights for important abiotic stress-related genes from thermotolerant P. cineraria, which can be used for crop improvement.
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    Mechanisms of sensing abiotic stress responses in plants
    (Elsevier, 2025) Joshi, Mukul
    Plants encounter various environmental stresses, and they need unique strategies to adapt to such adverse conditions. This chapter represents the mechanisms of sensing abiotic stresses and responses in plants. This includes the stress signal reception, sensing, and transduction via different factors into intracellular signaling, further inducing stress-responsive genes and proteins. After receiving the stress on the cell surface and sensing it by primary messengers, intracellular Ca2+ ions are major messengers that increase during most stress-induced signal transduction pathways. The induced Ca2+ initiates different pathways for different abiotic stresses and downstream cellular processes, many of which are common to various stresses and result in stress-specific physiological and developmental responses. Significant progress has been made in understanding the early to downstream events in abiotic stress signaling in plants, which is reviewed and documented in this chapter.
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    Identification of candidate genes mediating apple fruit-cracking resistance following the application of gibberellic acids 4 + 7 and the cytokinin 6-benzyladenine
    (Elsevier, 2018-06) Joshi, Mukul
    Calyx-end cracking in 'Pink Lady' apple is treated by a solution of gibberellic acids 4 and 7 (GA4+7) and the cytokinin 6-benzyladenine (BA). Although the GA4+7 and BA mixture is applied early in apple fruit development, it mitigates cracking that becomes evident in the mature fruit, implying a long-term treatment effect. The reduced incidence of peel cracking is associated with increased epidermal cell density, which is maintained until fruit maturation. Presently, the expression of genes that have been previously reported to be associated with epidermal cell patterning and cuticle formation, or cracking resistance, was monitored in the peel during fruit development and following GA4+7 and BA treatment. For most of the genes whose expression is naturally upregulated during fruit development, the early GA4+7 and BA treatment maintained or further increased the high expression level in the mature peel. Where the expression of a gene was downregulated during development, no change was detected in the treated mature peel. Gene-networking analysis supported the interaction between gene clusters of cell-wall synthesis, cuticle formation and GA signaling. Overall, the data suggested that the GA4+7 and BA treatment did not modify developmental cues, but promoted or enhanced the innate developmental program
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    Adventitious root formation in crops—Potato as an example
    (Wiley, 2020-12) Joshi, Mukul
    The root system of potato is made up of adventitious roots (AR) that form at the base of a sprout once it emerges from the mother tuber. By definition, AR originate from dormant preformed meristems, or from cells neighboring vascular tissues in stems or leaves. This may occur as part of the developmental program of the plant (e.g., potato), or when replacing the embryonic primary roots in response to stress conditions, such as flooding, nutrient deprivation, or wounding. AR formation is studied mainly in cereals and model plants, and less is known about its developmental program in root and tuber crops. In this review, we summarize the recent data on AR development in potato and relate this knowledge to what is known from model plants. For example, AR formation following stem cutting in potato follows a pattern of initiation, expression, and emergence phases that are known for other plants and involves auxin, the master regulator of AR induction and development. Molecular regulation of AR formation and the effect of environmental stresses are discussed. Understanding the origin and nature of AR systems in important crops will contribute to increased production and improve global food security.
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    The journey and new breakthroughs of plant growth regulators in tissue culture
    (Elsevier, 2022) Joshi, Mukul
    Plants use plant growth regulators (PGRs) as chemicals to support their growth, differentiation, and development. Since the early 20th century, plant tissue culture has become an essential tool for plant research, thereby gaining traction on an effective approach to propagate plants in vitro. Beyond all difficulties of the respective time, tissue culture is being used in studies on developmental processes of plants from micropropagation to generation of transgenic plants and many other applications. With natural PGRs, synthetic PGRs are being added to the basket, enabling multiple species to be grown in vitro. Other than widely used auxins and cytokinins, recently characterized PGRs, i.e., brassinosteroids, jasmonic acid, and salicylic acid, are opening new avenues to the ways of plant regeneration, including suspension cultures. Novel methods of characterizing endogenous PGR levels with newly identified PGRs will enable improved protocols for growing recalcitrant species.
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    Matters of the desert: A perspective on achieving food and nutrition security through plants of the (semi) arid regions
    (Elsevier, 2023-12) Deepa, P.R.; Sharma, Pankaj Kumar; Joshi, Mukul
    The semi- and arid agro-climatic zones of India harbor numerous plants, many occurring as wild and neglected inhabitants of the desert landscape, that bear edible fruits. They are capable of growing in extreme temperatures, on marginal lands and water-scarce conditions. These also represent sustainable food sources for the future. The benefits that they confer to the ecosystems and communities can be manifold: (a) as influencers of agricultural productivity for other crops (like cereals) in agroforestry systems; (b) as balanced functional foods by way of providing high quality protein, macro- and micronutrients to target protein-calorie malnutrition; (c) as sources of antioxidants, nutraceuticals and bioactive leads to target the ever-increasing burden of non-communicable diseases like obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disorders. A few representative examples of the promising desert plants include: Prosopis cineraria, Acacia senegal, Cyamopsis tetragonoloba (cluster bean), Capparis decidua, Ziziphus mauritiana (Indian jujube), Cordia dichotoma, Leptadenia pyrotechnica, Calligonum polygonoides, and millets. Even though the potential of such plants has been recognized by food and agricultural scientists, research gaps like low yield, disease vulnerability, presence of anti-nutrients, unavailable genomic sequence information, exclusion from the formal food value chain, and poor marketing strategies, prevent the realization of their full potential. The current perspective looks at the promise afforded by underutilized plants of the Indian desert regions in ensuring food and nutrition security as well as the possibility of developing value-added agri-food products from them. The complementary role that food processing technologies can play in achieving the desired goals would also be highlighted so as to transform the desert plants from traditional to ‘climate-smart’ future foods.
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    ML-based technologies in sustainable agro-food production and beyond: Tapping the (semi) arid landscape for bioactives-based product development
    (Elsevier, 2024-08) Joshi, Mukul; Deepa, P.R.; Sharma, Pankaj Kumar; Mahapatra, Tanmaya
    The current era of rapid climate change necessitates greater emphasis on wild, often underutilized yet sturdy, edible plants that are capable of growing in harsh arid lands. When compared to more popular crops like rice, these are often of traditional significance and more region-specific; but needing less chemical fertilizers, pesticides and irrigation water, they can not only provide food and nutrition in a sustainable manner but also medicinally valuable compounds (nutraceuticals) to target various communicable and non-communicable diseases. These bioactive metabolites could also serve as markers for in-process quality control of herbal formulations and as metabolic biomarkers. Of late, a few of the common food crops across the world have benefited from the use of technological interventions, employing various Internet of Things (IoT) devices and sensors to collect data on the farm and conduct agro-food specific analytics. Machine Learning (ML) and deep learning (DL) have found application in numerous facets of agriculture, particularly in tasks such as yield prediction, disease detection, weed detection, crop recognition, and assessing crop quality at pre-harvest, harvest, and post-harvest stages. ML technology also has shown potential to be effectively employed at various stages of bioactives discovery, encompassing target identification, compound screening, lead discovery, as well as pre-clinical and clinical development phases. However, the usage of these modern technologies has been less explored in the desert plants of the world. The current article reviews a few available examples and highlights the potential of employing ML and DL technologies in edible plants of the world, with a focus on sustainable desert flora, for achievement of multidisciplinary objectives, that is, agro-food production, food safety and bioactives discovery.
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    Nutraceutical and flavor profiles in underutilized desert legumes of India: gene editing strategies towards sustainable food development
    (Springer, 2023-03) Joshi, Mukul; Deepa, P. R.; Sharma, Pankaj Kumar
    Climate change has posed a challenge for food security all over the world in the form of fluctuating crop yields and novel disease outbreaks in plants. Human society’s overdependence on a few food crops does not seem a wise precedence. There are numerous underutilized/orphan/neglected legumes growing in the Indian desert regions that can come to the rescue and act as balanced and sustainable sources of nutrients and health-benefitting nutraceuticals. However, challenges such as low plant yield, unidentified metabolic pathways and off-flavor in the food products derived from them prevent the realization of their full potential. Conventional breeding techniques are too slow to achieve the desired modifications and cater to the sharply rising demand for functional foods. The novel gene editing tools like CRISPR-Cas provide more precise tool to manipulate the target genes with or without introduction of foreign DNA and therefore, have better chances to be accepted by governments and societies. The current article reports some of the relevant ‘gene editing’ success stories with respect to nutraceutical and flavor profiles in the popular legumes. It highlights gaps and future potential, along with areas requiring caution, in underutilized edible legumes of the Indian (semi) arid regions like Prosopis cineraria, Acacia senegal and Cyamopsis tetragonoloba.