BRIC-National Institute of Plant Genome Research

Dr. Senthil-Kumar Muthappa

Scientist-V

Profile

Research Interests

Stress interaction and combined stresses in plants

Due to changing climatic factors, plants are expected to combat the unique combination of stresses. Plants simultaneously exposed to a combination of stresses (for example, drought and pathogens) are expected to employ altogether a different &tailored response for combating them compared to those independently exposed to individual stresses. Such unique adaptive strategy used by plants is an exciting area of research.
Our lab uses Arabidopsis thaliana as model plant and attempts to capture the unique genes involved in disease resistance of these plants against Pseudomonas syringae pathovars (host & nonhost pathogens) under drought stress. Also, we study the interaction of moisture stress with fungal pathogen infection in chickpea and Ralstonia solanacearum infection in tomato plants. We employ virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS) tool to investigate the functional relevance of candidate genes.

Findings from this project will enable understanding not only the nature of stress interaction, but also the specific defense responses of combined stressed plants against pathogens.

Nonhost resistance of plants against pathogens

Plants are regularly exposed to wide variety of disease-causing pathogens in their environment. Plants have evolved various defense mechanisms, both active and passive to combat pathogen attack. R-gene mediated defense limits the host range of a pathogen to the member of a single species and is often overcome by the pathogen. In contrast, nonhost resistance is a response to all races of a particular pathogen and occurs in all cultivars of a nonhost plant species. We are particularly interested in understanding nonhost resistance of model plant A. thaliana against few bacterial pathogens that cause disease in crop plants (for example, tomato, and beans). Our lab also has a specific interest in identifying the nonhost plants of Begomoviruses and understanding the resistance mechanism operating in such nonhost plants against the viruses.

Career

Staff scientist: NIPGR, New Delhi (June 2013 onwards)

Post-Doctoral Fellow: Noble Research Institute, Ardmore, Oklahoma, USA (Jan 2007 to June 2013)

Research Associate: University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore (June 2006 to Jan 2007)

Fellowships and Awards

Year

Fellowships/Awards

2022

Fellow, National Academy of Sciences India (NASI)

2021

Fellow, Indian Society for Plant Physiology (FISPP), New Delhi, India

2020

J.C. Bose Gold Medal Award of Indian Society for Plant Physiology

2020

Member, National Academy of Sciences India (NASI)

2020

Fellow, The National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS), India

2015

DBT Innovative Young Biotechnologist Award

2015

NAAS Associateship, The National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS), India

Ramalingaswami Re-entry Fellowship, Department of Biotechnology, New Delhi.

Ramanujan Fellowship, Department of Science and Technology, New Delhi [fellowship not availed].

Interested in joining the lab?

Motivated young researchers who would like to join the lab to work on prediction of the occurrence and impact of stress combinations [drought-pathogen stress interaction] by employing simulation and crop modelling related tools are welcome to contact the PI. Researchers with strong statistical, geoinformatics and bioinformatics skills can apply through DBT-BIOCARE or INSPIRE or CSIR senior RA or DST women scientist or DBT-RA or open lab positions.

Current Members

Miss. Anita Kumari

Research Associate

Research Project: Investigating the role of Cicer arietinum SWEET genes in drought modulated dry root rot disease defense response

Miss. Durgadevi Adimoolam

Junior Research Fellow

Screening of chickpea germplasm accessions for dry root rot disease using paper blot and sick pot methods

Mr. Dulla Sandeep

Junior Research Fellow

Characterization of chickpea germplasm resource to accelerate genomics-assisted crop improvement.

Miss. Neha

Technical Assistant

Stress Combination and their interaction in plant database (SCIPDb)

Dr. Gopal Banerjee

Shri Shankar Acharya

Senior Technical Officer

Responsibilities: Maintenance of computational tools developed by the laboratory and overall day to day laboratory management

Miss.Shilpa Mukherjee

Ph. D. Students

Dissecting the key mechanistic role of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and its associated SynComs in providing protection against combined dry root rot disease under drought conditions in chickpea

Miss. Suman saini

Ph.D. Student

Elucidating the role of biochemical defence in dry root rot resistance in chickpea.

Mr. Shubhashish Ranjan

Ph.D. Student

Characterization of genetic determinants of dry root rot disease resistance in chickpea under abiotic stress

Miss. Anjali

Ph.D. Student

Role of a SWEET transporter(s) in plant-pathogen interaction

Mr. Aswin Reddy Chilakala

Ph.D. Student

Combating dry root rot disease of chickpea by expressing antifungal proteins and through genetic enhancement

Mr. Rishabh Mirchandani

Ph.D. Student

Exploring non-host disease resistance to Macrophomina phaseolina

Mr. Sunder Singh Solanki

Field cum Laboratory Attendant

Mr. Rahim Hussain Tarafdar

Field cum Laboratory Attendant

Former Lab Members

Miss. Komal Vitthalrao Mali

PhD Student (Aug 2018- Nov 2024)

Studies on Rhizoctonia bataticola – chickpea interaction under drought stress

Mr. Vadivel Murugan Irulappan

PhD Student (July 2015-Mar 2021)

Understanding Mechanisms of Tolerance to Combined Drought and Pathogen infection in Chickpea Using Transcriptomic and Gene Silencing Approaches

Ms. Aanchal Choudhary

Elucidating molecular basis of tailored defense response employed by Arabidopsis thaliana against combined biotic and abiotic stresses by functional genomics approach

Resources

Stress Combinations and their Interactions in Plants (SCIP) Database – http://223.31.159.3/plant_complete/index_orangesunset.php and https://db.nipgr.ac.in/plant_complete/index_orangesunset.php

pssRNAit: Designing Effective and Specific Plant RNAi siRNAs with Genome-wide Off-target Gene Assessment – https://www.zhaolab.org/pssRNAit/

Selected Publications

Research articles

Priya, P., Patil, M., Pandey, P., Singh, A., Babu, V.S. and Senthil-Kumar, M., 2023. Stress combinations and their interactions in plants database: a one-stop resource on combined stress responses in plants. The Plant Journal, 116(4), pp.1097-1117. https://doi.org/10.1111/tpj.16497

Chilakala, A.R., Pandey, P., Durgadevi, A., Kandpal, M., Patil, B.S., Rangappa, K., Reddy, P.C.O., Ramegowda, V. and Senthil Kumar, M., 2023. Drought attenuates plant responses to multiple rhizospheric pathogens: A study on a dry root rot-associated Disease complex in chickpea fields. Field Crops Research, 298, p.108965.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fcr.2023.108965

Choudhary A and Senthil-Kumar M (2022) Drought attenuates plant defence against bacter ial pathogens by suppressing the expression of CBP60g/SARD1 during combined stress. Plant Cell & Environment 45(4):1127-1145.https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/pce.14275

Irulappan V, Kandpal M, Saini K, Rai A, Ranjan A, Sinharoy S, Senthil-Kumar M (2022) Drought stress exacerbates fungal colonization and endodermal invasion and dampens defense responses to increase dry root rot in chickpea. Molecular Plant Microbe Interactions, https://apsjournals.apsnet.org/doi/10.1094/MPMI-07-21-0195-F

Fatima U, Bhorali P, Senthil-Kumar M (2019) Morpho-pathological and global transcriptomic analysis reveals the robust nonhost resistance responses in chickpea interaction with Alternaria brassicae. Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions https://doi.org/10.1094/MPMI-05-19-0117-R

Senthil-Kumar, M., Mysore, K. Tobacco rattle virus-based virus-induced gene silencing in Nicotiana benthamiana. Nature Protocol 9, 1549-1562 (2014).https://doi.org/10.1038/nprot.2014.092

Saxena S, Pal L, Naik J, Singh Y, Verma PK, Chattopadhyay D, Pandey A (2023) The R2R3-MYB-SG7 transcription factor CaMYB39 orchestrates surface phenylpropanoid metabolism and pathogen resistance in chickpea. New Phytologist doi:10.1111/nph.18758

Rojas CM, Senthil-Kumar M, Wang K, Ryu CM, Kaundal A and Mysore KS (2012) Glycolate oxidase plays a major role during nonhost resistance responses by modulating reactive oxygen species mediated signal transduction pathways. The Plant Cell 24(1): 336-52. https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.111.093245

Keri Wang#, Senthil-Kumar M#, Choong-Min Ryu, Li Kang and Mysore KS (2012) Phytosterols play a key role in plant innate immunity against bacterial pathogens by regulating nutrient efflux into the apoplast. Plant Physiology 158(4): 1789-802. #equal contribution. https://doi.org/10.1104/pp.111.189217

Senthil-Kumar M and Mysore KS (2012) d-ornithine aminotransferase and proline dehydrogenase genes play a role in nonhost disease resistance by regulating pyrroline-5-carboxylate metabolism-induced hypersensitive response. Plant Cell and Environment 35(7): 1329-43. https://doi.org/10.1104/pp.111.189217

Sharma NK, Gupta SK, Dwivedi V, Chattopadhyay D (2020) Lignin deposition in chickpea root xylem under drought. Plant Signal. Behav. 15(6):e1754621

Review articles

Choudhary, A. and Senthil-Kumar, M., 2024. Drought: A context-dependent damper and aggravator of plant diseases. Plant, Cell & Environment. https://doi.org/10.1111/pce.14863

Pandey, P., Patil, M., Priya, P. and Senthil-Kumar, M., 2024. When two negatives make a positive: the favorable impact of the combination of abiotic stress and pathogen infection on plants. Journal of Experimental Botany, 75(3), pp.674-688. https://doi.org/10.1111/pce.14863

Fatima, U., Anjali, A. and Senthil-Kumar, M., 2022. AtSWEET11 and AtSWEET12: The twin traders of sucrose. Trends in Plant Science, 27(10), pp.958-960. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tplants.2022.06.009

Rai, A., Irulappan, V. and Senthil-Kumar, M., 2022. Dry root rot of chickpea: a disease favored by drought. Plant Disease, 106(2), pp.346-356. https://doi.org/10.1094/PDIS-07-21-1410-FE

Senthil-Kumar M and Mysore KS (2013) Nonhost resistance against bacterial pathogens – retrospects and prospects. Annual Review of Phytopathology 51: 19.1-19.21.https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-phyto-082712-102319

Senthil-Kumar M and Mysore KS (2011) New dimensions of using VIGS for plant functional genomics. Trends in Plant Science 16(12): 656-665. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tplants.2011.08.006

Research covered in news media

Podcast Interview (06/July/2024): https://open.spotify.com/episode/0chGqOfF6H16q4YDxELoAI

Research Matters press release (23/Mar/2020): Chickpea’s trick can help mustard fight fungi

American Phytopathological Society a press release (29/Jan/2020): Can chickpea genes save mustard seeds from blight disease?

The Hindu BusinessLine story (9/Feb/2020): Fighting fungal pest: Chickpea could give mustard a tip or two

Press release IS-MPMI InterConnections on student achievements (12/Mar/2020): Student project reveals a strategy for managing Alternaria blight through nonhost resistance

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