Kodiveri Muthukaliannan Gothandam

Bio: Kodiveri Muthukaliannan Gothandam is an academic researcher from VIT University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Gene & Publication bias. The author has an hindex of 19, co-authored 78 publications receiving 1108 citations. Previous affiliations of Kodiveri Muthukaliannan Gothandam include Chungbuk National University & C. Abdul Hakeem College.

Sodium bicarbonate augmentation enhances lutein biosynthesis in green microalgae Chlorella pyrenoidosa

Abstract: The present study was carried out to investigate the effects of different concentrations of sodium bicarbonate (0, 50, 100, 150 and 200 mM) on the biosynthesis of lutein and lipids and also the expression of genes involved in lutein carotenogenesis in Chlorella pyrenoidosa. The algal extract from cultures treated with different concentrations of sodium bicarbonate was analyzed using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) for lutein quantification. HPLC results revealed a three-fold increase of lutein in C. pyrenoidosa culture grown in 100 mM concentration (4.84 ± 0.56 mg/g of DCW), followed by 50 mM concentration (4.21 ± 0.11 mg/g of DCW) supplemented cultures compared to 150 mM and 200 mM concentration (2.32 ± 0.093 mg/g of DCW and 2.31 ± 0.114 mg/g of DCW) and control culture (1.45 ± 0.18 mg/g of DCW). The expression analysis of phytoene desaturase, lycopene cyclase and carotenoid hydroxylase genes also showed a significant up regulation in their expression when supplemented with sodium bicarbonate. Lipid yield was observed to be increased significantly when supplemented with sodium bicarbonate. Therefore, sodium bicarbonate (100–150 mM) can be used as a potential dissolved inorganic carbon source for enhancing lutein and lipid production during large scale cultivation of C. pyrenoidosa cultures.

Comment on "Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Diagnostic Accuracy of miRNAs in Patients with Pancreatic Cancer".

Abstract: Pancreatic cancer is one of the most malignant and aggressive cancers, with poor survival rates and diagnosis being based on nonspecific tumour biomarkers. Due to this, the publication, “Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Diagnostic Accuracy of miRNAs in Patients with Pancreatic Cancer”, by Sun et al. has excellent potential for highlighting potential miRNAs as high-accuracy diagnostic markers in pancreatic cancer [1]. However, we believe that despite the comprehensive study conducted by Sun et al., there are a few improvements that could be made to heighten the clinical utility of the paper further. As it stands, we believe that the study has some issues that prevent such applications of Sun et al.’s study.

Effect of salt stress on expression of carotenoid pathway genes in tomato

Abstract: Carotenoids, the naturally occurring isoprenoids form essential components of photosynthetic antenna and reaction centre complexes. Thus they play a significant role in absorption, dissipation and transfer of light energy for the process of photosynthesis. The effects of salt stress on carotenoid gene expression in tomato leaves were studied. For that tomato plants were subjected to different concentration of salt water. Morphological characters such as plant height, no. of fruits per plant, chlorophyll content and expression of four major carotenoid pathway genes such as phytoene synthase, phytoene desaturase, zeta carotene desaturase and lycopene beta cyclase were analysed. The quantitative expression analysis using real time PCR has shown a decrease in the expression of all the studied genes as the salt concentration increased. Among the different concentrations of NaCl used for the experiment, it was seen that 200 mM was most detrimental for the carotenoid gene expression. Lycopene beta cyclase, the enzyme that converts lycopene to beta carotene was seen to be highly affected compared to other genes studied showing a 1.87 fold inhibition in its expression at 200 mM NaCl.

SPAdes, a new genome assembly algorithm and its applications to single-cell sequencing ( 7th Annual SFAF Meeting, 2012)

Abstract: The lion's share of bacteria in various environments cannot be cloned in the laboratory and thus cannot be sequenced using existing technologies. A major goal of single-cell genomics is to complement gene-centric metagenomic data with whole-genome assemblies of uncultivated organisms. Assembly of single-cell data is challenging because of highly non-uniform read coverage as well as elevated levels of sequencing errors and chimeric reads. We describe SPAdes, a new assembler for both single-cell and standard (multicell) assembly, and demonstrate that it improves on the recently released E+V-SC assembler (specialized for single-cell data) and on popular assemblers Velvet and SoapDeNovo (for multicell data). SPAdes generates single-cell assemblies, providing information about genomes of uncultivatable bacteria that vastly exceeds what may be obtained via traditional metagenomics studies. SPAdes is available online ( http://bioinf.spbau.ru/spades ). It is distributed as open source software.

Cytoplasmic Male Sterility of Rice with Boro II Cytoplasm Is Caused by a Cytotoxic Peptide and Is Restored by Two Related PPR Motif Genes via Distinct Modes of mRNA Silencing

Abstract: Cytoplasmic male sterility (CMS) and nucleus-controlled fertility restoration are widespread plant reproductive features that provide useful tools to exploit heterosis in crops. However, the molecular mechanism underlying this kind of cytoplasmic-nuclear interaction remains unclear. Here, we show in rice (Oryza sativa) with Boro II cytoplasm that an abnormal mitochondrial open reading frame, orf79, is cotranscribed with a duplicated atp6 (B-atp6) gene and encodes a cytotoxic peptide. Expression of orf79 in CMS lines and transgenic rice plants caused gametophytic male sterility. Immunoblot analysis showed that the ORF79 protein accumulates specifically in microspores. Two fertility restorer genes, Rf1a and Rf1b, were identified at the classical locus Rf-1 as members of a multigene cluster that encode pentatricopeptide repeat proteins. RF1A and RF1B are both targeted to mitochondria and can restore male fertility by blocking ORF79 production via endonucleolytic cleavage (RF1A) or degradation (RF1B) of dicistronic B-atp6/orf79 mRNA. In the presence of both restorers, RF1A was epistatic over RF1B in the mRNA processing. We have also shown that RF1A plays an additional role in promoting the editing of atp6 mRNAs, independent of its cleavage function.

Stress‐responsive microRNAs in Populus

Abstract: MicroRNAs (miRNAs), a group of small non-coding RNAs, have recently become the subject of intense study. They are a class of post-transcriptional negative regulators playing vital roles in plant development and growth. However, little is known about their regulatory roles in the responses of trees to the stressful environments incurred over their long-term growth. Here, we report the cloning of small RNAs from abiotic stressed tissues of Populus trichocarpa (Ptc) and the identification of 68 putative miRNA sequences that can be classified into 27 families based on sequence homology. Among them, nine families are novel, increasing the number of the known Ptc-miRNA families from 33 to 42. A total of 346 targets was predicted for the cloned Ptc-miRNAs using penalty scores of