Department of Biological Sciences

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Subject: search.filters.subject.Prosopis cineraria

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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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    Silent metabolism and not-so-silent biological activity: possible molecular mechanisms of stress response in edible desert legumes
    (Springer, 2021-11) Sharma, Pankaj Kumar; Deepa, P.R.
    In the arid/semi-arid regions of India, there are many legumes often growing in the wild like Prosopis cineraria, Cyamopsis tetragonoloba and Acacia senegal. These legumes accumulate useful metabolites, often as glycosides, such as flavonoids and isoflavonoids under conditions of stress like heat and low rainfall. When required, some of these metabolites are produced by the activity of glycoside hydrolase enzymes like β-glucosidase rather than de novo biosynthesis. Local human populations have been consuming food prepared from the edible portions of these plants since ancient tradition. However, studies on phytochemical-cum-metabolic aspects are surprisingly limited in these plants—these being important parameters for developing them into scientifically-validated holistic health foods. It is important that this task is carried out for indigenous plants with useful antioxidant-guided medicinal properties rather than always depending upon expensive and imported exotic foods. The current article highlights research insights and perspectives from our work on edible desert legumes as well as those of other international research groups active in this area, particularly pertaining to flavonoids and their metabolism in planta. A few possible research goals for legume plant scientists are also suggested.
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    Desert legume Prosopis cineraria as a novel source of antioxidant flavonoids / isoflavonoids: Biochemical characterization of edible pods for potential functional food development
    (Elsevier, 2022-03) Deepa, P. R.; Sharma, Pankaj Kumar
    Flavonoids and isoflavonoids in foods are attracting attention as they are significant antioxidant and phytoestrogenic compounds that are beneficial for human health. In this study, the edible pods of the underutilized desert legume Prosopis cineraria from Rajasthan, India were used to extract flavonoids. The pods from semi-arid zone showed the highest flavonoid content (432 mg Rutin hydrate/gm). UV spectrophotometric analysis was also done to characterize flavonoids. The flavonoids and isoflavonoids were further purified from semi-arid zone plants using column chromatography with Amberlite XAD7HP and Sephadex LH-20. LC-MS analysis revealed the presence of medicinally valuable antioxidant flavonoids and isoflavonoids in the pods, viz. vitexin, puerarin, phloridzin, and daidzein. It was seen that the flavonoids/isoflavonoids are present in the selected legume in different forms i.e. pure aglycone, C-glycoside as well as O-glycoside. This finding makes P. cineraria an attractive source candidate for extraction of these nutraceuticals with a potential for development into functional food.
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    Identification of an isoflavone glycoside hydrolyzing-glucosidase in the seeds of the desert legume Prosopis cineraria
    (Divya Enterprise, 2018) Sharma, Pankaj
    Legumes, in general, are rich in glycosidicisoflavone conjugates, wherebyspecific β-glucosidases act to release the free aglycones that could serve in plant-microbe interactions and defense. Prosopis cineraria is an important legume tree, bearing medicinally useful and edible pods, generally growing in extreme arid/semi-arid zones of Rajasthan. However, specific phytochemical-cum-metabolic profiles are lacking for the same. Therefore, the present investigation undertook phytochemical and metabolic screening of the pods/seeds of P. cineraria for the presence of putative isoflavonoids viz. genistein and daidzein, their glycosides and β-glucosidase(s) capable of catalyzing the glycoside hydrolysis. Extraction and identification of these two aglycone forms of the above isoflavonoids were performed with solvent partition chromatography and Fluorescent/High Performance Thin Layer Chromatography, respectively. Furthermore, optimization of the isoflavone conjugate-specific β-glucosidase activity with respect to pH optima, temperature and time were carried out. The partially purified enzyme showed a temperature optima of 50°C and pH optima of 4.5. The enzyme also demonstrated activity towards natural substrates daidzin and genistin which are glycosides of isoflavonoids daidzein and genistein respectively. The methanolic extracts of the seeds of P. cineraria indicated the presence of related isoflavonoids which needs to be further validated.
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    Comparative analysis of antioxidant and antiproliferative activities of crude and purified flavonoid enriched fractions of pods/seeds of two desert legumes Prosopis cineraria and Cyamopsis tetragonoloba
    (Elsiever, 2021-06) Sharma, Pankaj
    Cyamopsis tetragonoloba and Prosopis cineraria are two legumes of the semi-arid region of Indian subcontinent which are unexplored with respect to their medicinal potential. Moreover, there is considerable lack in the comparative analysis of the biological properties of crude and enriched fractions obtained from the pods and seeds. Therefore, this study aims in investigating the effect of purification on the antioxidant and anticancerous activities of the extracts from the two legumes. This is the first study to purify an enriched methanolic fraction using Amberlite XAD7HP column chromatography followed by analysis using Thin Layer Chromatography. This matrix provided an economic and time efficient isolation of flavonoids and isoflavonoids from the seeds and pods of the above mentioned legumes. In addition, antioxidant activity carried out using DPPH assay showed that purification process did not contributed to enhanced antioxidant potential. However, inverse results were obtained during anticancerous activity assay on Huh-7 cell lines.