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Govind Ballabh Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar

After independence, development of the rural sector was considered the primary concern of the Government of India. In 1949, with the appointment of the Radhakrishnan University Education Commission, imparting of agricultural education through the setting up of rural universities became the focal point. Later, in 1954 an Indo-American team led by Dr. K.R. Damle, the Vice-President of ICAR, was constituted that arrived at the idea of establishing a Rural University on the land-grant pattern of USA. As a consequence a contract between the Government of India, the Technical Cooperation Mission and some land-grant universities of USA, was signed to promote agricultural education in the country. The US universities included the universities of Tennessee, the Ohio State University, the Kansas State University, The University of Illinois, the Pennsylvania State University and the University of Missouri. The task of assisting Uttar Pradesh in establishing an agricultural university was assigned to the University of Illinois which signed a contract in 1959 to establish an agricultural University in the State. Dean, H.W. Hannah, of the University of Illinois prepared a blueprint for a Rural University to be set up at the Tarai State Farm in the district Nainital, UP. In the initial stage the University of Illinois also offered the services of its scientists and teachers. Thus, in 1960, the first agricultural university of India, UP Agricultural University, came into being by an Act of legislation, UP Act XI-V of 1958. The Act was later amended under UP Universities Re-enactment and Amendment Act 1972 and the University was rechristened as Govind Ballabh Pant University of Agriculture and Technology keeping in view the contributions of Pt. Govind Ballabh Pant, the then Chief Minister of UP. The University was dedicated to the Nation by the first Prime Minister of India Pt Jawaharlal Nehru on 17 November 1960. The G.B. Pant University is a symbol of successful partnership between India and the United States. The establishment of this university brought about a revolution in agricultural education, research and extension. It paved the way for setting up of 31 other agricultural universities in the country.

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2010 - 20164
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Subject: Molecular Biology and Biotechnology × End date: 2016 × Start date: 2010 × Type: Thesis × Thesis Type: Ph.D ×
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Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    ThesisItemOpen Access
    Biofortification of hexaploid wheat with iron and zinc through classical and molecular approaches
    (G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar - 263145 (Uttarakhand), 2016-01) Mathpal, Priyanka; Sundip Kumar
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    ThesisItemOpen Access
    Synthesis of antigenic peptides of rabies virus and development of anti-peptide antibodies for diagnostic uses
    (G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar - 263145 (Uttarakhand), 2010-01) Pandey, Vinod Chandra; Rajesh Chandra
    Rabies, a unique viral disease of warm blooded animals, kills virtually every individual it infects and is still a major problem for the developing and developed countries. Confirmatory diagnosis of rabies helps in taking appropriate prophylactic measures and is also essential for epidemiological investigations. The present study was undertaken with an aim to develop synthetic peptide antigens for serodiagnosis of rabies. At the same time antipeptide antibodies were developed for detecting rabies virus antigen. The rabies virus (CVS strain) was maintained in the laboratory by serial mouse to mouse passage. The rabies virus was also grown in BHK-21 and Neuro 2a cells. Additionally, the virus was also isolated from a cow calf suspected to have died of rabies virus infection. The Seller’s staining technique, fluorescent antibody test (FAT), rabies tissue culture infection test (RTCIT) and mouse inoculation tests were performed for confirmation of rabies virus. In case of Seller’s staining, magenta red colored Negri bodies were visible. In case of FAT and RTCIT, apple green colored, grain like fluorescent foci were observed in positive cases. Similarly, the intra-cerebral inoculation of mice with virus, characteristic symptoms were recorded and mice succumbs to death within seven days. The hyperimmune sera (HIS) was raised in mice and rabbits by immunizing with BPL inactivated CVS virus and also using commercially available ‘Raksharab’ vaccine. The virus titration was performed in suckling mice and BHK-21 cells to determine optimum concentration of virus for performing challenge studies. The LD50 of 10-6.5 and 10-3.9 were recorded for intra cerebral mouse inoculation and in cell culture. Thereafter, 20 to 50 LD50 dose of virus was used for various challenge experiments. For developing synthetic peptide antigens, the regions in Glycoprotein, Nucleoprotein and Phosphoprotein of rabies virus were identified based on parameters like hydrophylicity index, surface probability, antigenic index and presence of ordered Beta and turn structure. The identified peptides were synthesized in three different formats. Firstly, B- cell epitopes were synthesized as linear peptides. The chimeric linear peptides were synthesized by combining the B cell epitopes and the T- helper epitopes P & N. appropriate spacer was used between B cell and T helper epitope sequence. Besides this peptide sequences were also synthesized in multiple antigenic peptide (MAP) format in such a way that each MAP molecule contained 4 copies of peptide sequence. In total, 14 different peptides were synthesized by solid phase peptide synthesis method using Fmoc chemistry. The purity of peptides was checked by RP-HPLC and about 90% purity was recorded. For raising antipeptide antibodies, these 14 different peptides were injected in mice at 0,7,14, 28 days and sera were collected at 32 days. Besides, different combinations of these 12 peptides were also injected in mice to assess the role of T helper peptides in generating immune response in mice. The antigenic synthetic peptides detected the rabies virus specific antibodies in the HIS raised in both mice and rabbit. On repeated testing with peptide ELISA, at least 3 times more OD492 nm was recorded in comparison to preimmune sera. Additionally, when these peptides were reacted with convalescent serum from recovered mice, about 2 fold more increase in OD492 values were recorded in comparison to serum from infected mice. When peptides were used in combination to coat the ELISA plate, even better ELISA reactivity was observed, pointing towards suitability of these antigens in sero-diagnosis of rabies. The antipeptide antibodies were raised in mice using synthetic peptide antigen. The peptides were given individually and also in combination with T helper epitopes. Besides, the MAPs were also used for immunization either individually or in combinations with T helper epitope peptide. The antibody titer were estimated and it was found that when immunized along with T helper epitopes, the APA titer increased in case of linear epitopes. Whereas, in case of a combinations of MAPs & T helper epitopes , APA titers upto 102400 were also recorded. This shows the suitability of using T helper epitopes along with either linear or MAPs for generating high titer antibodies in the host. The APAs were also found suitable in detecting native virus by antigen capture ELISA. In double sandwich ELISA virus could be detected with 3 fold more ELISA signals than negative controls. The circular dichorism (CD) spectroscopy was performed to determine the solution conformation of linear, chimeric and MAPs. The CD spectra were recorded in 2 different solvents (water and 90% Tri fluoro ethanol). It was observed that peptides adopted ordered structure in both water and TFE with random coil structure ranging in between 20 to 35 %. When CD spectra of peptides were recorded in helicogenic solvent like TFE, the ordered structure, predominantly helix, was induced in most of the antigenic peptides at the expense of randomness. When peptides were coated on ELISA plate in 90% TFE, higher ELISA signals were recorded indicating that antigenic peptides in more ordered confirmation can serve as better ELISA antigens. Overall, in present study peptides were synthesized in different formats and their suitability in detecting antibodies was assessed. Further, the antipeptide antibodies raised against these peptide antigens have shown promising results for the diagnosis of native rabies virus. Basic virological techniques like virus isolation in cell culture and virus titration in vitro and in vivo were used to accomplish research objectives. The immunological techniques like FAT, RTCIT & ELISAs were also performed. Besides this, biophysical techniques like HPLC and CD spectroscopy were also performed to accomplish the desired objectives. The synthetic peptide antigens and epitope specific antipeptide antibodies developed in this study can be promising candidate reagents for the confirmatory diagnosis of rabies.
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    ThesisItemOpen Access
    Deciphering the role of calcium transporters and their regulation in differential spatial and genotype dependent accumulation of calcium in finger millet (Eleusine coracana l. Gartn.)
    (G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar - 263145 (Uttarakhand), 2012-08) Mirza, Neelofar; Anil Kumar
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    ThesisItemOpen Access
    Molecular marker based bulk segregant analysis for blast resistance in aromatic rice
    (G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar - 263145 (Uttarakhand), 2010-08) Singh, Balwant; Kumar, J.
    Basmati is considered as the best quality rice in world market and fetches highest premium. But some of the non-Basmati scented rices, which include some Kalanamak accessions, are much superior to Basmati-types with respect to all other traits except grain length. Many of the traditional small and medium grained scented rices fetch higher price than Basmati in their native areas of cultivation. There is, however, an urgent need to properly characterize and improve these rices for useful traits such as aroma, quality and resistance to biotic (blast) and abiotic (salinity) stresses. Vast diversity in these rices strengthens the necessity to develop designer’s varieties of scented rices with desired traits as per consumers’ requirements, which in turn should offer a great advantage in both national and international market. In the present investigation, thus an effort was made for the improvement of the Kalanamak accessions against rice blast and quality and agro morphological traits. A set of 50 rice accessions, including 24 Kalanamak accessions, was characterized on the basis of agro-morphological characters, quality traits and SSR molecular markers. The mean values of the traits were found to be significant, indicating that there were significant differences in different morphological and grain quality characteristics of the scented rice genotypes selected for the study. The mean value of morphological trait, plant height varied from 100.83 to 177.4, number of panicles varied from 6 to 12, panicle length varied from 24 to 34, 50% flowering varied from 93 to 147.67 and days to maturity ranged from 123 to 183.67. The mean value of quality trait, L/B ratio ranged between 2.5-3.0, alkali spread value between 4-5, elongation ratio between 1.8-2.2 and strong aroma were found among most of the genotypes studied. With collective score of all the morphological and quality traits, genotype PB-1 was found to be most suitable genotype for improvement of Kalanamak accessions. Five Kalanamak accessions viz., 3216, 3327, 3119, 3131 and 3122 were also found suitable and selected for breeding programme. Cluster analysis clearly differentiated all the accessions into different subgroups. Molecular marker analysis clustered blast resistant genotypes in the same group with more than 80% similarity and rest of the genotypes showed about 50% similarity. The parents selected on the basis of their resistance against blast under controlled conditions, wherein isolates from different geographical regions were used for challenge inoculation, also showed similar resistant pattern at the blast hot spot at Hawalbagh (Almora). The pattern of blast resistance found in the parents 3131SN, 3327 and 3131SN was found to be similar to the IRRI differential lines, IRBLks-F5 (gene Pik-s), IRBLz-Fu (gene pi-z), and IRBLz5-CA (piz-5). Molecular marker analysis confirmed the presence of above mentioned genes in the parents. Chi-square values for disease resistance were good fit to the Mendalian ratio of 3:1 among all the F2 populations. Significant correlation was found between most of the markers and resistance phenotype, however PVE ranged from 9.52% for marker lc-19 in population B to 37% for lc-22 for population C. Bulk segregant analysis proved close association of the resistance gene(s) with their respective makers. All the segregants showed discrete pattern of segregation for blast resistance. Screened morphological traits showed continuous segregation among all the progenies. All the F2 populations viz: A, B, C, D, E and F showed resistance to blast to a good extent. Along with blast resistance, population E showed reduction in plant height and population C and E showed early maturation. The segregants found promising for the desired traits would be advanced to the next generation.