Morphological, Histobiochemical and Molecular Characterisation of Low Lignin Phloem Fibre (llpf) Mutant of Dark Jute (Corchorus olitorius L.).

Lignin is a versatile plant metabolite challenging high-end industrial applications of several plant products including jute. Application of developmental mutant in regulation of lignification in jute may open up door for much awaited jute based diversified products. In the present study, a novel dark jute (Corchorus olitorius L.) mutant with low lignin (7.23%) in phloem fibre being compared to wild-type JRO 204 (13.7%) was identified and characterised. Unique morphological features including undulated stem, petiole and leaf vein distinguished the mutant in gamma ray irradiated mutant population. Histological and biochemical analysis revealed reduced lignification of phloem fibre cells of the plant. RT-PCR analysis demonstrated temporal transcriptional regulation of CCoAMT1 gene in the mutant. The mutant was found an extremely useful model to study phloem fibre developmental biology in the crop besides acting as a donor genetic stock for low lignin containing jute fibre in dark jute improvement programme.

An efficient and cost effective method of RNA extraction from mucilage, phenol and secondary metabolite rich bark tissue of tossa jute (C. olitorius L.) actively developing phloem fiber.

Tossa jute is an important natural fiber crop of Southeast Asian countries including India, Bangladesh, China, Thailand, Myanmar etc. Traditional industrial application of jute fiber is limited to the packaging products like hessians, sacks, etc. and the fiber found unsuitable for textile industries largely due to significantly high lignin content. Therefore, understanding genetic factors underlying lignin biosynthesis in tossa jute holds promise for jute based product diversification. The major limiting factor in undertaking such study is unavailability of efficient protocol for RNA extraction at secondary growth active stage of tossa jute. Here we report a simplified, swift and cost effective protocol for isolating fairly good quality RNA from bark tissue of 65-days-old field grown tossa jute plant with active secondary growth. The purity, concentration and integrity of extracted RNA ascertained. To confirm downstream amenability, isolated RNA samples were reverse transcribed and PCR analysis done by using CCoAMT1 primer. Results established that method of RNA extraction presented here is an improvement over the other methods, particularly for bark tissue of field grown tossa jute at advance developmental stage. Therefore, present study will enhance our ability to understand expression pattern of fiber formation and maturation related genes in mature bark tissue that holds key for much talked genetic manipulation of fiber quality via lignin optimisation in the crop.

Induced expression of bone morphogenetic protein-6 and Smads signaling in human monocytes derived dendritic cells during sickle-cell pathology with orthopedic complications.

BMP-SMAD (bone morphogenetic protein) signaling pathways in association with APT play paramount roles in osteoblastic differentiation, bone formation and embryonic development of human and animals. However, the implications of potent components (BMP6, Smad1, Smad2 and APT) of this pathway in SCD (sickle cell disease) pathology with orthopedic complications (Ortho+SS) are poorly elucidated and substantially unknown. Here, we address the role of BMP6, Smad1, Smad2 and APT mRNA and protein expression in hMDDCs obtained from Ortho+SS patients, employing RT-PCR, qRT-PCR and immunoblotting. Interestingly, we observed that SCD pathology exhibited significantly up-regulated expression of those signaling components at the level of mRNA and protein. Furthermore, exogenous BMP6 induced apoptosis was observed to be significantly associated in Ortho+SS complication and markedly increased the percentage of cells undergoing apoptosis as compared to healthy group. Interestingly, the non-stimulated cells have shown higher apoptotic nuclei percentage than the stimulated cells in pathological condition. Thus, expression of BMP-SMAD signaling components augments apoptosis and up regulates the transcription of these genes and it suggests that induction is due to transcriptional regulation. Taken together, our findings provide evidence that BMP-SMAD signaling components along with APT were over expressed, mediates apoptosis and may play an important role in the SCD pathology with orthopedic complications.

Mutation -538 T/C in bone morphogenetic protein 4 do not increase the risk in sickle-cell disease with orthopedic complications but strongly associated with increased LDH and uric acid level in Indian patients from Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand states.

BACKGROUND: Bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) are involved in the various orthopedic complications such as avascular necrosis, osteonecrosis and bone turnover, therefore genes coding for proteins, like BMP4, can be potential candidate for studying orthopedic disorders. METHODS: A case-control study was conducted to examine the association between SNP T538C of BMP4 and orthopedic complications in sickling patients by employing PCR-RFLP. RESULTS: A total of 200 cases and 172 control groups were studied from Indian population. T538C SNP has not been implicated in disease and doesn't increase the risk (OR=0.89, OR=0.68). We observed no significant association between the T538C polymorphism and case group in the studied population. However, we observed significantly increased uric acid and LDH level in homowild (TT), heteromutant (TC) and homomutant (CC) in case group compared to control group ( all p=0.0001) and (p=0.0001, p=0.0001, p=0.015 and p=0.0001, p=0.0001, p=0.0001 respectively) in the studied population. CONCLUSIONS: The T/C polymorphism in BMP4 is not associated with case group and in view of present observation, we suggest that evaluation of LDH and uric acid level and its association with polymorphisms in the BMP4 may be considered to be reliable molecular and biochemical markers, and possess promising rational for diagnostic potential in clinical cases.