Small chemical molecules regulating the phytohormone signalling alter the plant's physiological processes to improve stress adaptation, growth and productivity.

Small chemical molecules are attractive agents for improving the plant processes associated with plant growth and stress tolerance. Recent advances in chemical biology and structure-assisted drug discovery approaches have opened up new avenues in plant biology to discover new drug-like molecules to improve plant processes for sustained food production. Several compounds targeting phytohormone biosynthesis or signalling cascades were designed to alter plant physiological mechanisms.

Transgenics in groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.) expressing cry1AcF gene for resistance to Spodoptera litura (F.).

Large number of primary transgenic events were generated in groundnut by an Agrobacterium mediated, in planta transformation method to assess the efficacy of cry1AcF against the Spodoptera litura. The amplification of required size fragment of 750 bp with npt II primers and 901 bp with cry1AcF gene primers confirmed the integration of the gene. The expression of the cry gene was ascertained by ELISA in T2 generation, and the maximum concentration of cry protein in transgenic plants reached approximately 0.

A simple, novel and high efficiency sap inoculation method to screen for tobacco streak virus.

A rapid and efficient sap inoculation method for tobacco streak virus (TSV) was developed in sunflower. Sap from TSV-infected sunflower plants was freshly extracted in phosphate buffer and diluted serially from 10(-1) to 10(-8). Two-day old seedlings of sunflower were injured at the meristem and immersed in the sap for 10 min, maintained at 20 °C for 2-3 days and shifted to greenhouse.