APB 441: Advances in Plant Biotechnology (60)
UNIT I (15)
Plant protection: Diseases of field, vegetable, orchard and plantation crops of India and their control; causes and classification of plant diseases; principles of plant disease control biological control of diseases; seed health testing, Integrated pest management-concepts and components; host plant resistance-biological control of insect pests; genetic manipulation of insects for their control; pesticides, their formulation, classification and safe use; behavioural methods; use of computer modeling in pest and disease outbreak; insect growth regulators; biotechnological approaches in IPM;
UNIT II (15)
Agricultural microbiology: Contributions of Beijerinck and Winogradsky-Role of microbes in carbon and nitrogen cycles-Influence of Rhizosphere on soil microorganism-various types of nitrogen fixing microorgranism-Production of bacterial biofertilizers: Rhizobium, Azospirillum, Phosphobacteria etc.- Fungal biofertilizers; Ecto- and Endomychorizae- Azolla and BGA- Method of application for different biofertilizers, biopesticides.
UNIT III (15)
Concept of secondary metabolites, their applications in agriculture and health industry. In vitro production of secondary metabolites: introduction to secondary metabolism, significance of cell differentiation, selection, downstream processing, influence of culture conditions on accumulation of secondary metabolites, immobilization of cells for enhanced production of secondary products, biotic and abiotic elicitation. Different techniques involved in isolation, purification and characterization of useful secondary metabolites from cultured cells.
UNIT IV (15)
Transgenic techniques in plant biotechnology: introduction of foreign gene into plants, basics of tumor formation, hairy root culture and its uses, features of Ti & Ri plasmid, mechanism of DNA transfer, role of virulence gene, use of reporter gene, multiple gene transfers, vector less or direct DNA transfer, particle bombardment, electroporation, microinjection, chloroplast transformation. Applications of plant transformation for enhancing resistance to pests, productivity & performance, nutritional value, modification of ornamental plants, bioengineered food, edible vaccines, plantibodies, biopharming.
Suggested Readings
1. Slater, Plant Biotechnology, OUP 2. H.E Street(ed): Tissue culture and Plant science, Academic press,London, 1974 3. M.K.Sateesh, Biotechnology-5 Animal cell biotechnology Immune biotechnology Plant biotechnology New Age Int Publishers,2003 4. Concepts in Biotechnology D. Balasubramaniam, Bryce, Dharmalingam, Green, Jayaraman 5. Univ. Press, 1996
- Teacher: Sushama Patil