Research Projects

Abiotic stresses, such as salt and drought, significantly impact rice yield and lead to significant crop loss. To cope with these stress conditions, complex signaling cascades are involved, including cytosolic Ca2+, Ca2+ sensors, Ca2+ responders, CAMTAs, and CaM KMT. The rice genome contains one calmodulin-lysine N-methyltransferase gene, five CaMs, seven CAMTA genes, and at least 32 different calmodulin-like proteins (CML) and 31 calmodulin dependent protein kinases (CDPKs). Several reports have shown the involvement of Ca2+/calmodulin signaling genes associated with various abiotic stresses as positive or negative regulators. However, there is no specific report pointing towards the master regulator(s) of Ca2+/CaM-mediated signaling cascade and their plausible binding partners. This multidisciplinary project will conduct varietal screening of rice to identify stress-tolerant and susceptible genotypes, followed by transcriptome profiling to identify the immediate master regulator(s). The project aims to expand the scientific understanding of Ca2+/calmodulin-mediated signal transduction in rice under multiple abiotic stresses, aiming to make climate-resilient crops in the near future.