Plant-Based Bioinformatics
The unpredictable climate change has reduced the yield of major crops like wheat (T.aestivum), rice (O.sativa) and maize (Z.mays). Of these, wheat has raised the alarming sign for plant breeders and agricultural scientists globally as half of the world population feeds on this crop as a major source of energy. Of the various abiotic stresses, heat stress during grain filling phase has adversely affected the productivity and nutritional quality.Â
To survive from harmful effects of heat stress, crop plants develop natural defense mechanisms at the molecular level. This activates candidate genes associated with the stress protein expression further protecting and repairing the damaged proteins. Thus, enable the cells to cope with heat stress which is not commonly known. This will provide an excellent framework for the initial identifying key genes whose expression is altered during heat stress. Further, this will contribute to developing new wheat lines with a high potential to express the desired heat stress tolerant phenotype under field conditions. Our group is focused in finding these desirable traits to heat resilient phenotype.