Iftikhar Ali
Dr. Iftikhar Ali is a Pakistani born male young Plant Geneticist in the institute of genetics and developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China. He completed his both Master of Science (M.Sc) and Master of Philosophy (M.Phil) degrees from Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad. He published many research articles in the prestigious journals with high impact points. He worked on molecular aspects of different plants from the simplest one like Arabidopsis to the most complex like wheat and rice. He knows three languages as natives (Urdu, Pashto and Punjabi) and English and Chinese as a professional language. Biochemistry, molecular biology, epigenetics and molecular and structural genetics are the research fields of his most interest. He did his PhD degree in the key state laboratory of molecular Biology under the supervision of Prof. Weicia Yang, Director IGDB, CAS. Now, he is serving as Assistant Professor in Centre for Plant Science and Biodiversity, University of Swat, Pakistan.
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damaged after milling as compared to hard wheat. Soft texture results from higher level of friabilin whereas hard texture results from low level of friabilin on starch granule surface. Friabilin, a marker of kernel texture is primarily composed of Puroindolines (PINs) and its genes (Pins) are
located on the Hardness (Ha) locus. The Pins are the molecular-genetic basis of kernel softness in wheat. When both Pins are in their ‘wild state’ (Pina-D1a and Pinb- D1a), wheat kernel is soft. Absence or mutation in one of the Pins results in hard grain texture with different effects on end use and milling qualities. Pina-D1b genotypes gave harder grain texture, higher protein content, water absorption of flour, damaged starch granules and greater flour yield than hard wheat. Recently, other Pins like genes, Pin b variant genes located on the long arm of chromosome 7A
were reported in bread wheat with more than 70% similarity to Pinb (Pinb-D1a) at the DNA level. Other genes located on chromosomes 1A, 2A, 5A, 7A, 5B, 2D and 6D also affect kernel texture. However the main determinants are the variants in the allelic diversity of Puroindoline
family genes. Contemporary studies show that Pins are multifunctional family of genes having a range of functions from grain hardness to natural defense against insects and pathogens such as viruses, bacteria and fungi.
reported functions of kinesins in eukaryotes and compare their specific cargoes in both plant and animal kingdoms to understand the possible roles of uncharacterized motors in a kingdom based on their reported functions in other kingdoms.
regions of five Pakistani rice varieties were analyzed for variations in expression regulation of these promoters and similarity with others germin and germin-like protein promoters. Phylogenetic analyses showed that the studied OsGLP1 promoters were tightly clustered around the ancestral group while putative OsGerA clustered around the descendant group. HADDOCK was used for docking selected transcription factors (TFs) with its corresponding regulatory elements, for determining the most stable interaction with the highest probability of hydrogen bonding between them. TATA box binding protein (TBP) elements mainly existed on the 3′ regions very near the gene, while far regions of promoters mostly lacked such elements. This study showed that TBP not only binds to (-30) TATA box element, but also binds to a wide range of elements at different rates, positioned on about a thousand base pairs upstream region of germin and germin-like genes. Arginine was found to be the most reactive residue in TFs, while adenine was the most sensitive in regulatory elements.