Background: The cultivated tomato is second most consumed vegetable of the world and is an important part of a diverse and balanced diet as a rich source of vitamins, minerals, phenolic antioxidants and antioxidant lycopene having anti-cancer properties. To reap benefit of genomics of the domestic tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) unravelled by Tomato Genome Consortium (The Tomato Genome Consortium, 2012), the bulk mining of its markers in totality is imperative and critically required. The solgenomics has limited number of microsatellite DNA markers (2867) pertaining to solanaceae family. As these markers are of linkage map having relative distance, the choice of selected markers based on absolute distance as of physical map is missing. Only limited microsatellite markers with limitations are reported for variety identification thus there is a need for more markers supplementing DUS test and also for traceability of product in global market. Description: We present here the first whole genome based microsatellite DNA marker database of tomato, TomSatDB (Tomato MicroSatellite Database) with more than 1.4 million markers mined in-silico, using MIcroSAtellite (MISA) tool. To cater the customized needs of wet lab, features with a novelty of an automated primer designing tool is added. TomSatDB (http://cabindb.iasri.res.in/tomsatdb), a user-friendly and freely accessible tool offers chromosome wise as well as location wise search of primers. It is an online relational database based on “three-tier architecture” that catalogues information of microsatellites in MySQL and user-friendly interface developed using PHP (Hypertext Pre Processor). Conclusion: Besides abiotic stress, tomato is known to have biotic stress due to its susceptibility over 200 diseases caused by pathogenic fungi, bacteria, viruses and nematodes. These markers are expected to pave the way of germplasm management over abiotic and biotic stress as well as improvement through molecular breeding, leading to increased tomato productivity in India as well as other parts of the world. In era of IPR the new variety can be identified based on allelic variation among varieties supplementing DUS test and product traceability.

Identification and characterization of new varieties is essential to meet DUS testing, address IPR issues and their utilization and conservation. A total of 68 ISSR primers were screened and out of these 23 primers which gave sufficient amplification were selected for the study. These primers produced 169 bands, out of which, 149 were polymorphic with a polymorphic percentage of 88.17%. The ISSR primers namely ISSR 22, ISSR 26, ISSR 38 generated least number of bands, i.e. four of which only two were polymorphic with a polymorphism of 50% in ISSR 22. The polymorphism across all the ISSR markers ranged between 66.7% (ISSR37) to 100% (ISSR 21, ISSR 25, ISSR 26, ISSR 28, ISSR 30 and ISSR 811). The resolving power of band (Rp) produced by ISSR markers ranged from 0.66 to 7.64 for primer ISSR 38 and ISSR 31 with a mean value of 86.48 for all the primers. The correlations between Rp and number of varieties identified by each ISSR primer (0.92) were fairly high. The value of polymorphic information content (PIC) was ranged from 0.023 (ISSR 809) to 0.553 (ISSR 26) with a mean value of 0.35 over all the primers. The UPGMA dendrogram based on ISSR analysis indicated that the outlier species were 74% dissimilar with other varieties and grouped separately. The cultivars Maghi Orange and Maghi Yellow had around 90% similarity and were close to cultivar Maghi White at over 80% similarity level. ISSR markers were proved to be useful for the characterization of the genotypes for their efficient utilization, management and IPR protection.

Chickpea is one of the dry edible legumes with best nutritional composition as it does not contain any specific major antinutritional or toxic factors. The seeds have an average of 23% protein and 80% of the crops’s nitrogen requirements are met from symbiotic nitrogen fixation. Chickpea has several desirable agronomic characteristics and it is one of the most heat and drought-resistant crop and suitable for production in low moisture and fertility soils. Chickpea remarkably predominates among other pulse crops in terms of both area and production in India. To meet with the ever increasing demand for new varieties with desirable traits, the genetic resources of chickpea are of immense value for the breeders. Due to rapid changes in the agro-ecological conditions throughout the world, the chickpea genetic resources comprising of wild species, old and primitive cultivars, land races endowed with superior gene complexes are being rapidly eroded. Efforts for augmentation of chickpea genetic resources were undertaken by importing the diverse germplasm from various parts of the world. The exotic introduction in chickpea comprises germplasm with resistance to various biotic and abiotic stresses and its wild species for utilisation in crop improvement programmes in India.

Handful of theories explained modes of gene fixation and drift by contradicting one after the other hypothesis. Detailed analyses of these hypothetical or established theories illustrate that, all these theories holds good at one or the other circumstances existing in a living cell and whole organism as well, at a functional balance of gene expression. This theory explains that, the earlier reported neutral theories based on selection acquiesce as it tries to conquer an expression balance of genes. The meagre existence of a deleterious gene is being even- handed by suppression of negative gene expression into a functional protein. At an exacting time there is a planned balance attained by the individual cell to survive; otherwise abscission, apoptosis or necrosis occurs, leading to death of a cell or organ or the organism. This balance could be of ions or cytosolic pH or the impact of total proteins imparting cellular quiescence. Mutations at active domains impede cellular processes by blocking a network of genes and finally protein pool of any functional cell. Balancing pH of any cell at a time is a final outcome of its acidic or alkaline components being regulated by gene expression at a particular time. Whether to make the cell survive or to initiate cell death is decided by pH flux, either to protect the adjacent cells from spreading pathogen invasion or any other physiological stress. Variations in such traits are obtained through evolutionary phenomenon which is an underlying, powerful, fundamental and important concept of life. Speculations in genomics and proteomics ponder upon network of functional proteins encoding genes in manifesting phenotype of an intact organism through proteome. Though it is counterintuitive, many tried a direct way of creating a mutant that has acquired changes or deletions in theirnucleotidesequences or knockouts to find its missing functions during its absence. To establish the fact that alterations in a single gene cannot be stable and it needs to balance another set of genes the present investigation was carried out.

Background: Carbonic anhydrase regulates various cellular processes. Intracellular pH flux impacted by carbonic anhydrase alters the enzyme’s allosteric active site which effects several downstream cellular processes. Earlier, we reported that, the catalytic activity of carbonic anhydrase is independent, but direction of catalysis is affected by cellular pH level. On the other hand carbonic anhydrase alters the cytosolic pH level to facilitate allosteric phosphorylation of proteins which further leads to cellular differentiation through a process being regulated by ncRNAs. Results: This study illustrates various ways of cell differentiation/ organ development regulation via carbonic anhydrase interacting network of proteins involved in various cellular processes. It is involved in protein degradation process of other proteins like RPT, 26S proteasome, AT3G15120 and its variant producing ncRNA, etc. Carbonic anhydrase indirectly involved in signaling process along with MAPK in providing innate resistance against biotic and abiotic stresses. It is also indirectly linked to cell membrane transporters like H ⁺ -ATPase and V-ATPase B. Conclusions: Though carbonic anhydrase is not directly linked with EMS1 as revealed by network analyses and protein-protein interaction there could be a suitable condition generated by the carbonic anhydrase for EMS1 to be active. Hence, we report that carbonic anhydrase, along with other pH regulating gene complexes plays a major role for making EMS1 functional.