Cotton is a precious commodity that offers raw material to the textile industry. This crop is grown in tropical and sub-tropical regions of the world. Abiotic stresses exerts negative impact on cotton production, but water scarcity has the worst impact. It is rising due to current situation, in which global warming is producing a decrease in precipitation while an increase in evapo-transpiration is causing an agricultural drought. Thus, it is a difficult task for cotton breeders to identify cotton lines that can respond to areas with limited water supplies without lowering yields and might be utilized as suitable parents in a breeding program to produce drought-tolerant indices. The primary objective of this research was the estimation of drought tolerance indices in upland cotton under water deficit conditions. For this purpose, fifty accessions of upland cotton were assessed for their ability to tolerate the water stress under three conditions, namely control, 50% FC, and 75% FC. These genotypes showed significant variations based on morpho-physiological and biochemical characteristics. At control conditions, these genotypes exhibited enhanced growth and better performance. Whereas, the behavior of some indices under 75% FC showed less growth as compared to control, while under the 50% FC highly significant reductions were observed among genotypes. The genotypes that are resistant to drought and those that are susceptible were found using the K-means cluster and biplot analysis. In terms of performance, the genotypes namely Cyto-515, CIM-595, FH-142, and IR-3701 exhibited relatively better in all the treatments and low excised leaf water loss, high relative water contents, chlorophyll contents, free proline contents, and peroxidase activity were observed to be useful selection criteria for drought resistance. These identified genotypes namely, Cyto-515, CIM-595, FH-142, and IR-3701 may be grown in water deficit areas of the country to assess their potential, could be used in breeding programs for development of germplasm suitable for water stress conditions.

Biological remediation serves as a powerful technique for addressing heavy metals toxicity in metals-contaminated soils. The present study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of lead (Pb)-resistant rhizobacterial strains on growth, photosynthetic traits, and antioxidant activities of the Arabidopsis plant under lead toxicity in pot conditions. Two pre-isolated and pre-characterized Pb-resistant Morganella morganii (ABT3) and Morganella morganii (ABT9) strains were used for inoculating Arabidopsis plants grown under varying Pb concentrations (1.5 mM and 2.5 mM) using PbNO₃ as the lead source. The treatments were set up in a completely randomized design with four replications. Data on growth parameters, physiological characteristics, lipid peroxidation, and antioxidant activities were recorded at harvesting. It was observed that Pb contamination caused a significant reduction in Arabidopsis growth, chlorophyll content and quantum yield at both lead concentrations. The Pb concentration of 2.5 mM, showed a substantial decrease in all parameters, including shoot fresh weight (58.72%), shoot dry weight (59.31%), root fresh weight (67.31%), root dry weight (67.28%), chlorophyll content (48.69%), quantum yield (62.36%), catalase activity (65.30%), superoxide dismutase (60.88%), and peroxidase activity (60.54%) while increasing lipid peroxidation (113.8%). However, the inoculation with Pb-resistant M. morganii strains (ABT3 and ABT9) improved plant growth, photosynthesis and antioxidant activities, while reduced the malondialdehyde content of Arabidopsis compared to control plants without inoculation. The M. morganii strain ABT9 showed a maximum increase in the shoot fresh weight (67.18%), shoot dry weight (67.96%), root fresh weight (94.04%), root dry weight (93.92%), shoot length (148.88%), root length (123.33%), chlorophyll content (52.53%), quantum yield (58.57%), catalase activity (39.46%), superoxide dismutase (21.84%), and peroxidase activity (22.34%) while decreasing lipid peroxidation (35.28%). PCA analysis further showed that all nine treatments scattered differently across the PC1 and PC2, having 81.4% and 17.0% data variance, respectively, indicating the efficiency of Pb-resistant strains. The heatmap further validated that the introduction of Pb-resistant strains positively correlated with the growth parameters, quantum yield, chlorophyll content and antioxidant activities of Arabidopsis seedlings. Both Pb-resistant strains improved Arabidopsis plant growth and photosynthetic efficiency under lead stress conditions. Thus, both Morganella morganii ABT3 and Morganella morganii ABT9 strains can be considered as bio-fertilizer for reducing lead toxicity thereby improving plant growth and physiology in metal-contaminated agricultural soils.

The green synthesis of nanoparticles has attracted the attention of scientific communities due to their simple, economical, and environment-friendly properties. This study focuses on the biological synthesis of zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnONPs) using an aqueous extract of Moringa Oleifera as a reducing and stabilizing agent. The formation, structure, and other physical and chemical properties of ZnONPs have been extensively studied using various microscopy and spectroscopic techniques. The biogenic synthesis of ZnONPs was confirmed by UV-visible (UV-Vis) spectrophotometer analysis and further characterized by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis, and Scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Potential antibacterial and antioxidant activity for ZnONPs were also studied. A sharp peak at 450 nm was observed by UV-Vis analysis, while FTIR analysis showed the presence of -O-H-, -C=C-and -C-H- stretching. SEM analysis revealed that ZnONPs were cubic and hexagonal with500 nmto 1µmsize. The results of antimicrobial activity presented that the zone of inhibition of ZnONPs against Pseudomonas aeruginosa ATCC25923, Bacillus subtilis ATCC6633, Klebsiella pneumoniae ATCC4617, and Escherichia coli ATCC15224 were in the range of 16-36 mm. The antioxidant potential was evaluated by DPPH assay and the IC50 value was 144.59 µg/mL. This study provides an ecofriendly green approach for ZnONPs synthesis with less time and energy consumption.

Plant viruses have become a major issue to the crop production around the world. These viruses have become an unavoidable limiting factor by causing rigorous crop deficit for those major crops which are economically important. Among these viruses, begomoviruses belonging to family Geminiviridae, have brought the major devastation to both monocots and dicots in tropical and sub-tropical regions. These begomoviruses are transmitted through white fly and cause diseases like mosaic, yellow mosaic, yellow leaf curling, and yellow vein etc. The objective of this study is to evaluate the association between the genetic diversity of begomoviruses and phenotypic data to identify the ideal cotton genotype for breeding. In this study, 30 leaf samples with CLCuD symptoms were analyzed using rolling circular amplification and PCR. Obtained results expressed the presence of begomovirus with its associated satellites (i.e. alpha and betasatellites) in six varieties, association of begomovirus and betasatellites in four varieties and combination of begomovirus with alphasatellite in six varieties. Severe disease symptoms were exhibited with these combinations in selected varieties but betasatellite-begomovirus complex demonstrated a deadly impact. Few varieties expressed the resistance against the begomoviruses, so these varieties can further be manipulated for breeding.

Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) are responsible for genetic mutations. We studied genetic molecular variations and found an association of oral cancer with SNP of Adenylate Cyclase 2 (ADCY2) rs252546 and complement C7 (C7) rs1450656 genes in people of Southern Punjab, Pakistan. The study involves 100 cases of oral cancer and 100 healthy individuals. ADCY2 is found as a membrane-associated enzyme and C7 is involved in innate immunity. The process of genotyping was carried out by Tetra ARMS Primer PCR. The genetic variant of ADCY2 rs252546 has allelic origin G/A and C7 rs1450656 with C/T. The statistical analysis showed that the 51-60 years age group is significantly associated with oral cancer. The allelic frequency of ADCY2 rs252546 and C7 rs1450656 was calculated through Hardy Weinberg equilibrium. The homozygous mutant allele G of ADCY2 was more prevalent in cases and C allelic genotype was equally found in cases and controls. Other demographic and polymorphic studies indicated a significant association of variants of ADCY2 and C7 with oral cancer in the local population of Punjab. Variations in ADCY2 and C7 can be used as potential biomarkers and biological targets for oral cancer management strategies.