Anil K Tripathi
Banaras Hindu University
Anil Kumar Tripathi is a Professor of Biotechnology and Director, Institute of Science, BHU. Earlier, he was Director of the Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants, a CSIR Institute at Lucknow, from 2014 to 2019. After obtaining M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Botany from Banaras Hindu University, he joined BHU as Lecturer in Biotechnology (1990) where he taught and researched Biotechnology for more than 25 years. His research interests include diversity, genetics, genomics, systems biology, and synthetic biology of bacteria, particularly, Azospirillum brasilense, a plant growth-promoting rhizobacterium. Besides being a Fellow of all three science academies of India, he is also a Fellow of the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS), the Association of Microbiologists of India (AMI), and the Biotech Research Society India (BRSI). He is also a recipient of the prestigious J C Bose National Fellowship. He was elected fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences in 2020.
Lectures by Fellows/Associates
G V Anand, Dayanand Sagar University, Bengaluru
Regulatory Cascades of Alternative Sigma Factors are involved in controlling Rhizocompetence in a Plant Growth Promoting Rhizobacterium, Azospirillum brasilense
Azospirillum brasilense is one of the most ubiquitous plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria, which colonizes the roots of a wide variety of plants due to its ability to sense and detoxify Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS), released by the plant roots during an oxidative burst. Azospirillum brasilense can outcompete other members of the rhizosphere community due to flagellar chemotaxis, efficient utilization of dicarboxylates, antibiotic resistance, and the ability to kill other rhizosphere bacteria using T6SS. Bacteria respond to changes in their internal or external environment by expressing genes needed to cope with the challenges of the altered environment. Sigma (σ) factors play a critical role in bringing about such changes in gene expression. Two regulatory cascades consisting of RpoE1-RpoH2 and RpoE2-RpoH1 regulate photo-oxidative stress, one cascade of RpoE1-RpoH5 regulates oxidative stress and another cascade of RpoE7-RpoH3 confers ampicillin resistance to A. brasilense in enhancing its fitness to plant rhizosphere.