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Anand Agricultural University, Anand

Anand Agricultural University (AAU) was established in 2004 at Anand with the support of the Government of Gujarat, Act No.(Guj 5 of 2004) dated April 29, 2004. Caved out of the erstwhile Gujarat Agricultural University (GAU), the dream institution of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and Dr. K. M. Munshi, the AAU was set up to provide support to the farming community in three facets namely education, research and extension activities in Agriculture, Horticulture Engineering, product Processing and Home Science. At present there seven Colleges, seventeen Research Centers and six Extension Education Institute working in nine districts of Gujarat namely Ahmedabad, Anand, Dahod, Kheda, Panchmahal, Vadodara, Mahisagar, Botad and Chhotaudepur AAU's activities have expanded to span newer commodity sectors such as soil health card, bio-diesel, medicinal plants apart from the mandatory ones like rice, maize, tobacco, vegetable crops, fruit crops, forage crops, animal breeding, nutrition and dairy products etc. the core of AAU's operating philosophy however, continues to create the partnership between the rural people and committed academic as the basic for sustainable rural development. In pursuing its various programmes AAU's overall mission is to promote sustainable growth and economic independence in rural society. AAU aims to do this through education, research and extension education. Thus, AAU works towards the empowerment of the farmers.

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2012 - 20144
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Subject: Biochemistry × End date: 2014 × Start date: 2012 × Type: Thesis × Thesis Type: Ph.D ×
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    ThesisItemOpen Access
    BIOCHEMICAL AND MOLECULAR CHARACTERIZATION OF COLD-INDUCED SWEETENING IN POTATO (SOLANUM TUBEROSUM L.) VARIETIES DURING STORAGE
    (AAU, Anand, 2014) GALANI, YAMDEU JOSEPH HUBERT; TALATI, J. G.
    Potato (Solatium tuberosum L.) is the third most important food crop, the most important non-grain food crop and one of the most essential basic vegetable worldwide as well as in Indian subcontinent. After harvest, potatoes are stored in cold storage to provide round the year supply to markets and consumers. But during storage at cold temperatures, many cultivars accumulate free reducing sugars derived from breakdown of starch to sucrose that is ultimately cleaved by acid invertase to produce glucose and fructose in a metabolic process known as cold-induced sweetening (CIS). Understanding the basis of CIS in potato tubers is of interest not only in basic research on plant adaptation to environmental stress but also in applied research, since high amounts of reducing sugars adversely affect the quality of processed food products. Investigations were carried out to characterize at biochemical and molecular levels the CIS in 11 potato varieties namely DSP 287, DSP 186, Kufri Surya, K. Chipsona-3, K. Sutlej, K. Sadabahar, K. Jyoti, K. Lauvkar, K. Himsona, K. Bahar and K. Badshah stored at 3 different temperatures viz., room temperature (25-32°C), incubator (15°C) and cold storage (4°C). Samples, collected every 15 days intervals for 105 days storage were analyzed for different parameters associated with carbohydrate metabolism on one side, and antioxidant capacity on the other side. Analysis of carbohydrate dynamics showed that low temperature storage negligibly influenced dry matter, starch and maltose contents of tubers, but a significant increase in reducing sugars, total soluble sugars, fructose, glucose, hexoses:sucrose ratio and a decrease of sucrose content were observed at 4°C as compared to room temperature. A strong positive correlation was found between reducing sugars and total soluble sugars, and between fructose and glucose. Additionally, important shrinkage and sprouting of tubers was observed at 15°C, they were less intense at room temperature, and no any shrinkage and sprouting occurred on tubers stored at 4°C. The potato varieties also appeared to be suitable for processing immediately after harvest or short storage at room temperature. The activity of β-amylase was considerably increased by storage at low temperature, and a weak correlation with starch content indicated an important role of other enzymes in starch degradation while absence of maltose accumulation with increased β-amylase activity implied a possible significant activity of maltase in potato tubers. Acid invertase activity drastically rose at low temperature and strongly paralleled reducing sugars, glucose, fructose and hexoses:sucrose ratio. Moreover, as acid invertase activity increased, sucrose content decreased, indicating the essential role of acid invertase in development of CIS. The above findings allowed to group the 11 potato varieties into low to high sugar-forming groups and thereby select K. Jyoti as CIS-tolerant and K. Badshah as CIS-susceptible. Banding pattern of both native and denaturated proteins of potato tubers could not clearly discriminate the varieties. Zymograms of p-amylase revealed differentially induced bands at low storage temperatures, which might justify the observed increase of enzyme activity. Screening of the 11 potato varieties with 10 SSR primers detected a total of 42 alleles arranged in 44 different configurations, among which 37 alleles (88%) were polymorphic. The polymorphic information content value of the SSR locus ranged from 0.473 to 0.787 thus indicating a high utility of these markers for study of genetic diversity in potato. The dendrogram derived from Dice's similarity coefficients among the 11 varieties could partially but efficiently differentiate close parents and sugar-forming groups. Differential gene expression analysis showed that during storage expression of vacuolar acid invertase gene StvacINV1 and p-amylase gene BAMl increased at low temperature and their transcripts were more expressed in the CIS-tolerant variety than the CIS-sensitive. Expression of invertase inhibitor gene INH2a however was higher in the CIS-tolerant variety than the CIS-sensitive. Correlating StvacINVl and INH2a expressions with reducing sugar content and acid invertase activity established that post-translational regulation of acid invertase by the invertase inhibitor protein could be an important component of resistance to CIS. Besides, correlation between BAM1 expression and (β-amylase activity affirmed the hypothesis of several enzymes and pathways involved in starch degradation during cold storage of potato. Analysis of antioxidant capacity parameters revealed that low temperature storage greatly influenced vitamin C content as well as the phenolic content. During storage, both parameters initially increased, then a fluctuated decline was observed but until the last day of observation, they remained above the initial level. Phenolic acids profiling by UPLC identified 12 compounds among which the most abundant was chlorogenic acid followed by gallic acid, sinapic acid and ellagic acid which is reported for the first time, while trans-cinnamic acid was the lowest. Except paracoumaric acid which decreased at 4°C, all the phenolic acids increased with storage among which sinapic acid and feruhc acid appeared to be most enhanced. Correlation analysis showed that gallic acid, caffeic acid. chlorogenic acid and protocatechuic acid significantly contributed to total phenolic content. Evaluation of antioxidant activity showed a close relationship between DPPH and ABTS methods. Antioxidant activity estimated by both the methods increased up to 60 days storage then at 90 days, they dropped to a level comparable or lower than the original value, irrespective of the storage temperature. Correlation study revealed that chlorogenic acid, gallic acid and ferulic acid mostly contributed to antioxidant activity. Activity of the antioxidant enzymes superoxide dismutase and ascorbate peroxidase both increased initially but then decreased to values lower than the initial level and were not influenced by storage temperature. Correlation with antioxidant activity indicated that the enhancement of reactive oxygen scavenging species in tubers could result mainly from ascorbate peroxidase activity. Isoforms of the two enzymes showed interesting polymorphism and changes in bands intensity as well as differential induction or suppression of bands during storage. However, isozymes of ascorbate peroxidase showed higher similarity and better discrimination of the varieties. Although a clear relationship between CIS and antioxidant capacity was not established, nevertheless it appeared that low sugar-forming varieties K. Jyoti, K. Himsona and K. Surya were also having high antioxidant capacity whereas K. Chipsona-3 and K. Bahar both high sugarforming had low antioxidant capacity. Hence, it is not unreasonable to suggest that antioxidant capacity of potato tubers should be taken into account in development of CIS-resistant varieties. Nonetheless, additional evidences are needed to confirm this suggestion as well as there is an urgent need to develop new varieties capable to cope with this cold stress.
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    ThesisItemOpen Access
    COMPARISON OF NUTRITIONAL QUALITY OF WHEAT GROWN BY CHEMICAL FERTILIZERS AND ORGANIC MANURES
    (AAU, Anand, 2013) LITORIYA, NITESH SITARAM; TALATI, J. G.
    Investigations were carried out at the Department of Biochemistry, Agriculture Biotechnology, Pesticide residue laboratory and Micronutrient project (ICAR), AA.U., Anand. The organic fertilizer systems increased the quality of durum wheat grain in terms of nutritional components viz., protein content and quality in terms of their fractions, gluten content, micronutrients, carotenoids content and antioxidant activity and decreased the antinutritional factor viz., heavy metals (Co, Cr and Ni) and phytic acid content. Electrophoretic studies of total protein and their fractions gave some idea about the identification of the effect of fertilizer system, but not up to the satisfactory level; so they cannot be considered as parameters to differentiate inorganically and organically grown wheat. However, 2-D gel electrophoresis gave five specific spots present only in organic fertilizer systems, which might be useful for identification of organic wheat. Application of organic fertilizers significantly increased the content of vitamin B complex viz., thiamine, pantothenic acid, niacin and folic acid as well as the phenolic and antioxidant compounds viz., ferulic acids, caffeic acid, coumaric acid, vanillic acid and sinapic acid as compared to inorganic. The influence of organic fertilization system on protein quality in terms of amino acids composition resulted in significant increase (18 to 50%) of all amino acids content in wheat grains over inorganic fertilizers. Essential amino acids, important for human health and growth were significantly increased up to 21 to 50% in organic fertilizer system fortified with biofertilizer over inorganic fertilizer. Application of organic fertilizers also increased the organic acid content viz., fumaric acid, succinic acid and benzoic acid over inorganically grown wheat. The residual effect of organic fertilizer system after harvest of wheat crop significantly increased the soil organic carbon content as well as nitrogen fractions (available, ammoniacal and nitrate nitrogen) as compared to inorganic treatment. Application of organic fertilizers significantly increased Fe, Mn and Zn content of soil but did not affect Cu content as compared to inorganic treatment. However, application of organic fertilizer retained the residual heavy metals (Cd, Co, Cr, Ni and Pb) content, which is vital in improving the soil health for plant growth. Application of organic fertilizer did not show any clear effect on chlorophyll content and different enzyme activities (urease, nitrate reductase and nitrite reductase) at both the stages viz., 7 and 14 DAG. The fertilizer systems gave fluctuation in enzyme activities according to their biological properties, so it could not be useful for comparison of effect of different fertilizers. However, organic fertilizer system reduced the nitrate content at both stages of wheat seedlings over inorganic. Ultimately, these data showed that the organic fertilizer systems might be useful for improvement of nutritional quality of wheat grains regarding their nutritional components viz., gluten content, protein content and its quality in terms of amino acids composition specially essential amino acids and fractions, water soluble B group vitamins, organic acids, micronutrients, carotenoids, antioxidant activity, phenolic acids and reduction of anti-nutritional factors i. e. phytic acid and heavy metals in wheat grain as well as the soil quality for plant growth by retaining the residual heavy metals and improvement in the organic carbon, nitiogen fractions, micronutiients and reduction in nitiate content of wheat seedlings.
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    ThesisItemOpen Access
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    ThesisItemOpen Access