Research Groups

Plant Biology: Plant Molecular Biology

Group Leader

Research Interests and Description
Group Members

Sudhir Kumar Sopory

International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology
Aruna Asaf Ali Marg
110 067 New Delhi, India

E-mail: sopory@icgeb.res.in
Office tel: +91-11-26742357/60, 26741358, 26742357
Office fax: +91-11-26742316

Education

J&K University, India, B.Sc. (Honours) and M.Sc.
University of Delhi, New Delhi, India, Ph.D.

Career History

1997, Plant Molecular Biology Lab., ICGEB New Delhi, India.
1991-1992, University of  Munich, Germany.
1987-1989, Plant Molecular Biology Lab., United States Department of Agriculture, Beltsville, USA
1985, Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India.
1981-1982, University of Texas at Austin, USA.
1976-1978, Visiting Scientist, Max-Planck- Institute, Koeln, Germany.
1973, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India.

Awarded the Bhatnagar Award of the Council and Scientific and Industrial Research, India, 1987 (award given by the Prime Minister of India), Chakravorty Award, 1988 (given by the Vice-President of India), Birbal Sahni Medal of the Botanical Society, 2001, Birbal Sahni Birth Centenary Award of Indian Science Congress 2005 (given by the Prime Minister of India), Godnev Award Lecture of Belarus Academy of Sciences. Elected Fellow of the Indian National Science Academy, New Delhi; the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore; the National Academy of Sciences, Allahabad; the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, New Delhi, and The  World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) Trieste, Italy.

Scientific Activity

The Group has been  working towards understanding the mechanism of light and stress regulation of gene expression. Specifically, the Group is directed at signal transduction events and pathways and developing transgenic technology for the production of salinity tolerant plants.
Earlier studies revealed an involvement of the phosphoinositide pathway in light signal transduction in plants. Recently, the role of phospholipase C was also shown in stress responses. A protein kinase C-like activity was also purified for the first time from plants and shown to be involved in signaling and in regulating plant growth and development. A novel type of PMA affinity column chromatography has also been developed to identify such proteins in plants. One of the substrates of the kinase was found to be a topoisomerase II whose activity was altered following phosphorylation.
Abiotic stresses place a heavy penality on the growth and yield of crop plants. The Group is looking to identify the genes that are regulated in response to salinity stress and also the mechanism of their induction. A large number of stress regulated genes have been identified from saline tolerant rice. Work on a few of these genes has led to the development of strategies for obtaining stress tolerant transgenic plants. In this context the Group has for the first time identified the glyoxalase system in plants and has shown the importance of this pathway under stress environments. The glyoxalase system comprises two enzymes, glyoxalase I and II which are involved in the detoxification of methylglyoxal whose level increases in response to stress. The Group has shown that by manipulating the expression of these genes it has been possible to enhance the stress tolerance limits of plants. The mechanism by which stress regulated genes are induced is also being studied in detail. For this promoter : reporter assays have been done. Identification of transcription factors and the role of histone modifications in regulating transcription is also being studied. It was found that post-translational modifications, like phosphorylation, may play an important role in the activity of transcription factors binding to specific cis-elements in the promoter regions of stress regulated genes.

Selected publications

Kumari, S., Sabharwal-Panjabi,V., Khushwa,H.R., Sopory, S.K., Singla-Pareek,S.L., Pareek, A.P. 2008. Transcriptome map for seedling stage specific salinity stress response indicates a specific set of genes as candidates for saline tolerance in oryza sativa L. Funct. Integ. Genomics, In Press

Agarwal, P., Agarwal, P.K., Nair, S., Reddy, M.K., Sopory, S.K. 2007. Stress-inducible DREB2A transcription factor from Pennisetum galucum is a phosphoprotein and its phosphorylation negatively regulates its DNA-binding activity. Mol. Genet. Genomics 277, 189-198

Mishra, R.N., Reddy, P.S., Nair, S., Markandeya, G., Reddy, A.R., Sopory, S.K., Reddy, M.K. 2007. Isolation and characterization of expressed sequencetags (ESTs) from subtracted cDNA libraries  of Pennisetum glaucum seedlings. Plant Mol. Biol. 64, 713-732

Misra, S.,  Wu, Y., Venkatraman, G., Sopory, S.K., Tuteja, N. 2007. Heterotrimeric G-proteins complex and GPCR from a legume (Pisum sativum): role in salinity and heat stress and cross talk with PLC. Plant Journal 51, 656-669

Rajagopal, D., Agarwal, P., Tyagi, W., Singla-Pareek, S.L., Reddy, M., Sopory, S.K. 2007. Pennisetum glaucum Na+/H+ antiporter confers high level of salinity tolerance in transgenic Brassica juncea. Mol. Breed. 19, 137-151

Singla-Pareek, S.L., Yadav, S.K., Pareek, A., Reddy, M.K., Sopory, S.K. 2006. Transgenic tobacco overexpressing glyoxalase pathway enzymes grow and set viable seeds in zinc-spiked soils. Plant Physiol. 140, 613-623

Sanan-Mishra, N., Pham, X-H., Sopory, S.K., Tuteja, N. 2005. Pea DNA helicase 45 overexpression in tobacco comfers high salinity tolerance without affecting yield. Proc.Natl.Acad.Sci. 102, 509-524

Tyagi, W., Rajagopal, D., Singla-Pareek, S.L., Reddy, M.K.Sopory, S.K. 2005. Cloning and regulation of a stress regulated Pennisetum glaucum Vacuolar ATPase c gene and characterization of its promoter that expresses in shoot hairs and floral organs. Plant Cell Physiol. 46, 1411-1422

Yadav, S.K., Singla-Pareek, S.L., Reddy, M.K., Sopory, S.K. 2005. Transgenic tobacco plants overexpressing glyoxalase enzymes resist an increase in methylglyoxal and maintain higher reduced glutathione levels under salinity stress. FEBS Lett. 579, 6265-6271

Hettiarachchi, G.H.C.M., Yadav, V., Reddy, M.K., Chattopadhyay, S., Sopory, S.K. 2003 Light mediated Regulation defines a minimal promoter region of TOP2 Nucl.Acid Res. 31, 5256-5265
 
Singla-Pareek, S.L, Reddy, M.K, Sopory, S.K. 2003. Genetic engineering of the glyoxalase pathway in tobacco leads to enhanced salinity tolerance. Proc Natl Acad Sci, USA 100, 14672-14677

Singh, B.N., Mudgil, Y., Sopory, S.K., Reddy, M.K. 2003. Molecular characterization of a nuclear topoisomerase II from Nicotiana tabacum that functionally complements a temperature-sensitive topoisomerase II yeast mutant. Plant Mol. Biol. 52, 1063-1076

Tuteja, N., Reddy, M.K., Mudgil, Y., Yadav, B.S., Chandok, M.R., Sopory, S.K. 2003. Pea DNA topoisomerase I is phosphorylated and stimulated by casein kinase 2 and protein kinase C. Plant physiol. 132, 2108-2115

Venkataraman, G., Goswami, M., Tuteja,N., Reddy, M.K., Sopory, S.K. 2003. Isolation and characterization of Phospholipase C delta isoform from pea that is regulated by light in a tissue specific manner .Mol.Gen. Genomics 270, 378-386

Veena, Reddy ,V.S., Sopory, S.K. 1999. Glyoxalase I FROM Brassica juncea : moleacular cloning ,regulation and its over expression confer tolerance in transgenic tobacco under stress . Plant Journal 17, 385-396 (Cover Page article)