Cavity architecture based modulation of ligand binding tunnels in plant START domains.

teroidogenic cute egulatory rotein ()-elated ipid ransfer (START) domain represents an evolutionarily conserved superfamily of widely distributed across the tree of life. Despite significant expansion in plants, knowledge about this domain remains inadequate in plants. In this work, we explore the role of cavity architectural modulations in START protein evolution and functional diversity.

Arabidopsis Target of Rapamycin Coordinates With Transcriptional and Epigenetic Machinery to Regulate Thermotolerance.

Global warming exhibits profound effects on plant fitness and productivity. To withstand stress, plants sacrifice their growth and activate protective stress responses for ensuring survival. However, the switch between growth and stress is largely elusive.

Identification and Downstream Analyses of Domains Amplified in Plant Genomes: The Case of StAR-Related Lipid Transfer (START) Domains in Rice.

Plant genomes can withstand small- and large-scale duplications, at a far greater success than any other kingdom in the tree of life, resulting in the existence and evolution of gene families, often with over a hundred members! The gene families, in turn, go through subfunctionalization or neofunctionalization, to form protein domains performing unique or grouped functions in context of the original activity. Due to the large number of such cases in the plant kingdom, it has become a routine task for plant biologists to investigate their specific gene family of interest. In this chapter, we provide a simple and standard pipeline for this effort, taking the example of steroidogenic acute regulatory protein (StAR) related lipid transfer (START) domains in rice, as reference.

Gene network modules associated with abiotic stress response in tolerant rice genotypes identified by transcriptome meta-analysis.

Abiotic stress tolerance is a complex trait regulated by multiple genes and gene networks in plants. A range of abiotic stresses are known to limit rice productivity. Meta-transcriptomics has emerged as a powerful approach to decipher stress-associated molecular network in model crops.