Research Projects

Dicliptera bupleuroides is a perennial herb belonging to the family Acanthaceae. Owing to its myriad medicinal benefits, D. bupleuroides is herb for many reasons. Locally known as sadahari, in Himachal Pradesh, D. bupleuroides is used in folkloric medicines for the treatment of bone fractures, snakebites, cut wounds, respiratory and urinary tract infections, liver ailments, malaria, epilepsy, jaundice, gummosis and hepatitis. The medicinal properties of D. bupleuroides are attributed to its rich secondary metabolites and other medicinal compounds with bioactive properties. A review of the International and National status of research on D. bupleuroides reveals dearth of studies on transcriptomics and advanced metabolomics. This knowledge gap hampers our understanding of gene regulatory networks associated with the biosynthesis and accumulation of medicinally important metabolites in D. bupleuroides. The research proposal aims to elucidate the novel transcripts and metabolite pathways involved in the biosynthesis of medicinally important metabolites in D. bupleuroides. To meet the objectives of this proposal, a de novo transcriptome assembly will be generated from the RNA isolated from various tissues of D. bupleuroides. This will parallely be followed by untargeted and targeted, qualitative and quantative analysis of metabolites from different tissues of D. bupleuroides. Both the data will be correlated to get a molecular and biochemical snapshot of the alkaloid metabolism in D. bupleuroides. This study would be helpful in gaining insights into the dynamic distribution of genes and metabolites in different tissues of D. bupleuroides. The transcriptome and metabolomics insights will further be helpful in providing a scientific basis for the regulatory mechanisms involved in secondary metabolite biosynthesis in this less-researched herb. The data sets generated from this study could be helpful in guiding the search for novel biosynthetic enzymes, natural products and aiding drug development from D. bupleuroides.