Muhammad Sameeullah

Recent developments in therapeutic protein expression technologies in plants

Infectious diseases and cancers are some of the commonest causes of deaths throughout the world. The previous two decades have witnessed a combined endeavor across various biological sciences to address this issue in novel ways. The advent of recombinant DNA technologies has provided the tools for producing recombinant proteins that can be used as therapeutic agents. A number of expression systems have been developed for the production of pharmaceutical products. Recently, advances have been made using plants as bioreactors to produce therapeutic proteins directed against infectious diseases and cancers. This review highlights the recent progress in therapeutic protein expression in plants (stable and transient), the factors affecting heterologous protein expression, vector systems and recent developments in existing technologies and steps towards the industrial production of plant-made vaccines, antibodies, and biopharmaceuticals.

Comparative Transcriptional Profiling of Primed and Non-primed Rice Seedlings under Submergence Stress

Submergence stress is a limiting factor for direct-seeded rice systems in rainfed lowlands and flood-prone areas of South and Southeast Asia. The present study demonstrated that submergence stress severely hampered the germination and seedling growth of rice, however, seed priming alleviated the detrimental effects of submergence stress. To elucidate the molecular basis of seed priming-induced submergence tolerance, transcriptome analyses were performed using 4-day-old primed (selenium-Se and salicylic acid-SA priming) and non-primed rice seedlings under submergence stress. Genomewide transcriptomic profiling identified 2371 and 2405 transcripts with Se- and SA-priming, respectively, that were differentially expressed in rice compared with non-priming treatment under submergence. Pathway and gene ontology term enrichment analyses revealed that genes involved in regulation of secondary metabolism, development, cell, transport, protein, and metal handling were over-represented after Se- or SA-priming. These coordinated factors might have enhanced the submergence tolerance and maintained the better germination and vigorous seedling growth of primed rice seedlings. It was also found that many genes involved in cellular and metabolic processes such as carbohydrate metabolism, cellular, and metabolic biosynthesis, nitrogen compound metabolic process, transcription, and response to oxidative stress were induced and overlapped in seed priming treatments, a finding which reveals the common mechanism of seed priming-induced submergence tolerance. Taken together, these results may provide new avenues for understanding and advancing priming-induced responses to submergence tolerance in crop plants.

Need of cost-effective vaccines in developing countries: What plant biotechnology can offer?

Abstract To treat current infectious diseases, different therapies are used that include drugs or vaccines or both. Currently, the world is facing an increasing problem of drug resistance from many pathogenic microorganisms. In majority of cases, when vaccines are used, formulations consist of live attenuated microorganisms. This poses an additional risk of infection in immunocompromised patients and people suffering from malnutrition in developing countries. Therefore, there is need to improve drug therapy as well as to develop next generation vaccines, in particular against infectious diseases with highest mortality rates. For patients in developing countries, costs related to treatments are one of the major hurdles to reduce the disease burden. In many cases, use of prophylactic vaccines can help to control the incidence of infectious diseases. In the present review, we describe some infectious diseases with high impact on health of people in low and middle income countries. We discuss the prospects of plants as alternative platform for the development of next-generation subunit vaccines that can be a cost-effective source for mass immunization of people in developing countries.

Fruits of Rosaceae Family as a Source of Anticancer Compounds and Molecular Innovations

Fruits of the family, Rosaceae (Apple, cherry, Peach, strawberry, rose, raspberry) are rich source of phenolic and antioxidant compounds having anticancer properties. The present chapter discusses the detail information about anticancer compounds of strawberry, raspberry, peach, apple, cherry and rose and also the genes responsible for the biosynthesis, accumulation and transport of anticancer compounds during growth and maturation of fruits. The transcriptome expression was performed to find putative genes responsible for anticancer compounds during the biosynthesis and transporter genes. It is revealed form the promoter analysis that cis-acting element is responsible for the regulation of anticancer compounds. Thus, CRISPR/Cas9 enhanced the biosynthesis of anticancer compounds during fruit development and maturation stages. CRISPR/Cas9 will be used for the silencing of genes which putatively inhibit the formation of anti-cancer compounds and also up-regulate biosynthesis and transporter genes mediated by CRISPR/Cas9to enhance their accumulation in these fruits.

CRISPR/Cas9-Mediated Immunity in Plants Against Pathogens

Global crop production is highly threatened due to pathogen invasion. The huge quantity of pesticides application, although harmful to the environment and human health, is carried out to prevent the crop losses worldwide, every year. Therefore, understanding the molecular mechanisms of pathogenicity and plant resistance against pathogen is important. The resistance against pathogens is regulated by three important phytohormones viz. salicylic acid (SA), jasmonic acid (JA) and ethylene (ET). Here we review possible role of CRISPR technology to understand the plant pathogenicity by mutating genes responsible for pathogen invasion or up-regulating the phytohormones genes or resistant genes. Thus hormone biosynthesis genes, receptor and feeding genes of pathogens could be important targets for modifications using CRISPR/Cas9 following multiplexing tool box strategy in order to edit multiple genes simultaneously to produce super plants. Here we put forward our idea thatthe genes would be either mutated in case of plant receptor protein targets of pathogens or up-regulation of resistant genes or hormone biosynthesis genes will be better choice for resistance against pathogens.

Bioinformatics Tools Make Plant Functional Genomics Studies Easy

In the era of omics with the huge available data sets in field of genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics and phenomics need the quick access and efficiently use of the information to validate the functions for the particlular gene family or the gene of interest in the plant cell. Therefore, user-friendly bioinformatics tools are utmost important for the students, researchers, and scientists to carry out successful functional genomics experiments. Here we describe the free available online databases and tools that can be utilized without prior deep knowledge of bioinformatics. The access to genomics, transcriptomics, metabolomics, and phenomics tools will be beneficial for designing of intelligent experiments.

In Silico Functional Analyses of SWEETs Reveal Cues for Their Role in AMF Symbiosis

SWEETs are novel class of sugar effluxers, which have unique functional role in plant biology. Besides nectar production, freezing tolerance, and transport of hexoses across tonoplast and growth-supporting role of pathogens, these SWEETs could have potential role in establishing powerful symbiotic relationship at the root interface and also in feeding to arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) symbionts. The microarray or transcriptome expression of SWEET genes from colonized roots revealed that out of 28 Medicago SWEETs, three genes (MtSWEET1b, MtSWEET3c, and MtSWEET12) were induced specifically due to AMF symbiosis. The root type specific expression of these three genes was also enhanced by AMF colonization in rice. The degree of expression of OsSWEET1b, OsSWEET3b, and OsSWEET12 was increased in colonized large lateral roots (LLRM) and crown roots (CRM), while OsSWEET3b and OsSWEET12 were induced in fine lateral roots (FLRM) and CRM, respectively. Promoter regions of these SWEETs represent critical motif elements (MYCS, PB1S, and PHR1) which play critical role in establishment of AMF symbiosis and phosphate starvation-induced responses, respectively. Taken together, these SWEETs have potential to be explored via functional genomics tools to understand feeding mechanisms to symbionts.