NBU Journal of Plant Sciences

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The NBU Journal of Plant Sciences serves as the official organ of the Department of Botany for the publication of research papers by its members and researchers. The journal is sent free to its members and different academic institutions on demand.

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    Acaricidal and Ovicidal Effects of Vitex negundo, Against Oligonychus coffeae, A Common Pest Found in Tea Gardens of North Bengal, India
    (University of North Bengal, 2023) Ghosh, Sandipan; Sen, Gargi; Ghosh, Chandra; Sen, Arnab
    Tea, a widely consumed and economical beverage across 65 nations, confronts substantial challenges from pests, notably the destructive Red spider mites, which pose significant hurdles for the industry due to their resilient nature and severe impact. Chemical pesticides, while effective against pests in tea production, degrade tea quality, prompting exploration into natural alternatives like floral diversity for pest control. A study in North Bengal, India, aims to the pest-controlling abilities of common weed found in tea gardens in the Terai and Dooars regions.The aqueous extracts of Vitex negundo L. as biocide employed in this study demonstrated substantial acaricidal and oviposition deterrent action against the tea Red Spider Mite Oligonychus coffeae after 48 hours of application. In the future, this aqueous extract could prove to be a fairly priced and efficient acaricide.
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    Underutilized Fruits of Northeast India and its Potential Benefits on Human Health - Review
    (University of North Bengal, 2023) Banerjee, Swarnendra; Sen, Arnab
    The Indian Himalayas, a global biodiversity hotspot, is home to 2532 species from temperate regions of Europe, China, Burma, the Sahara, and Africa. India's plant biodiversity includes 21 agroecosystems, including farmed fruit and wild, under-utilized fruit crops. These underutilized fruit crops have potential but are rarely planted, infrequently available on the market, or not farmed commercially. They are disease-resistant and adapted to heat and cold extremes, blessing tropical nations like India. Underutilized fruit crops have medicinal properties and are often used by Native Americans to heal ailments and for the financial well-being of tribal people in rural regions. The use of wild fruits as nutritional supplements or less expensive alternatives to commercial fruits is growing worldwide. Identifying and utilizing underutilized species is crucial for a diverse and nutritious diet, especially for rural poor and socially vulnerable populations in emerging countries. India's North-Eastern Hill region is an agrobiodiversity hub characterized by diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds. It is rich in wild agricultural plant relatives, particularly underutilized fruit crops, and mixed temperate, tropical, and subtropical fruits from various genera. Fruits, vegetables, and other plants naturally produce important polyphenol metabolites that influence their sensory and nutritive qualities, potentially curing various conditions.
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    PhytoResp : A Database for Medicinal Plants of Darjeeling, Against Respiratory Ailments
    (University of North Bengal, 2022) Das, Anushka; Banik, Ananya; Datta, Sutapa; Sen, Arnab
    PhytoResp is a digital, manually curated database developed at the Department of Botany, University of North Bengal (NBU). The database has been created with the help of 200 published research articles and the eleven volumes of ‘Chiranjib Banousadhi’ series, written by Shibakali Bhattacharya. Here, we provide the names of 329 medicinal plants that are available in the Darjeeling district region of North Bengal and are traditionally used in the treatment of respiratory diseases. The list of reported plants is included, along with their parts used. They are known to cure 38 respiratory diseases. Among these, 113 plants have already been reported as a cure for COVID-19 (in silico or in vivo). Also, we have taken a step to evaluate the efficiency of the phytocompounds through in-silico methods.
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    Persepectives on Extremophilic Actinobacteria - A Review
    (University of North Bengal, 2022) Sen, Gargi; Ghosh, Sandipan; Sarkar, Indrani; Sen, Arnab
    Actinobacteria are considered as the most potential and biotechnologically viable prokaryotes because of their ability for the production of bioactive metabolites. They have immense biosynthetic prospect that remains unopposed without a competent organism from other microbial collections. But the prospect of finding highly potential actinobacteria from ambient habitats is reduced due to the wide exploitation for antibiotic production. So attention has been diverted to the unexploited extremophilic habitats such as marine sediments, mangroves, deserts, rocks, glaciers, etc. Extremophilic actinobacteria are competent producers of new secondary metabolites that show a wide range of antagonistic activities against bacteria, fungi, cancer and also exhibit insecticidal and enzyme inhibition. This review is an attempt to explore extremophilic actinobacteria that may form the source for the synthesis of novel drugs that could be used to combat resistant pathogens and also for xenobiotic degradation.
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    Pharmacological Activity of Citrus macroptera: an overview of a medicinal plant
    (University of North Bengal, 2019-03) Lala, Mousikha; Bhattachary, Malay; Sen, Arnab
    Plants and plant parts have been extensively used as medicine from the dates of early civilization. They are low in cost and have least side effects. In India, the practice of the traditional medicinal can be traced back to 5000 B.C. Citrus macroptera (Mont.) of the family Rutaceae is a bitter fruit bearing plant commonly found in tropical and subtropical regions. It is an endangered wild plant of North-eastern India. Various parts of this plant such as leaves, bark, pulp, peel specially fruits have an immense range of medicinal importance and has been used in different kinds of ailments like fever, kidney and liver dysfunction, dyspepsia, cardiovascular disease, stroke and many more to mention. The fruit of this perennial spiny plant has potential antioxidant, cytotoxic, antimicrobial, antihypertensive, antipyretic and appetite stimulant activity. The principal phytochemical constituents of this plant are Ribalinine, Edulinine, Bergamottin, Psoralen, Marmin, Severine, Geipavarine, β-pinene, α-pinene, ρ-cimene, (E)-ocimene, vanilline, Rutin, kaempferol, sabinene, limonene, γ-terpinene and so forth. Furthurmore thrombolytic, antidiabetic, antidepressant, cardioprotective, hepatoprotective activity have been reported on this plant. This review represents a comprehensive study on the various aspects of Citrus macroptera with respect to their traditional and medicinal usage or better use as alternative medicine for various kinds of treatments.
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    Efficacy of anthocyanin in production of remedial tea
    (University of North Bengal, 2015-03) Labar, Reha; Sen, Arnab
    Tea is consumed as a medicinal beverage from centuries, as the medicinal component includes polyphenols, caffeine, and amino acids. Apart from that it also contains flavonoids; compounds reported to have antioxidant properties with many beneficial effects. Anthocyanins belonging to the flavonoid group are naturally occurring compounds that imparts colour to fruits, vegetables and plants. Apart from that it has an array of health promoting benefits. This article has been reviewed to highlight the importance of anthocyanin as well as to motivate research in exploring tea varieties with abundant anthocyanin so that consumption of anthocyanin rich tea or beverage and also use of natural dye made using anthocyanin would replace harmful effects of chemical drugs and also improve country's economy by flourishing the tea industry with increased consumption.
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    Antioxidant Potential of Canna: an overview
    (University of North Bengal, 2014-03) Mishra, Tanmayee; Sen, Arnab
    Canna, the solitary genus of the family Cannaceae and order Zingiberales, comprises of about 51 species of flowering plants. Canna species are native of South America but with the course of time they have been distributed throughout the world. It is an important plant not only from the ornamental point of view but also it is an important plant for starch production as well as its medicinal values. From the primitive time, village people commonly use Canna as herbal medicines in their daily dealings. Different plant parts like rhizome and leaves of Canna have been used for the treatment of inflammatory diseases, fever, hypertension, diabetes, menstrual disorders, malaria etc. Phytochemicals with high antioxidant activities reported from the members of genus Canna. Moreover, isolation and identification of chemical compounds shows the presence of derivatives of polysaccharide, anthocyanin and phenylpropanoid compounds. The present study reflects a comprehensive review on biological activities of Canna species with special reference to some other members of Zingiberales.
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    Sea buckthorn and its microsymbiont-a review
    (University Of North Bengal, 2011-03) Basistha, Bharat C; Sen, Arnab
    Hippophae sp. is a versatile plant restricted in distribution to the Himalayas having multipurpose usage including food, fodder, medicine, and controlling soil erosion. Besides, it plays a huge role in increasing the fertility of the soil by harboring symbiotic nitrogen fixing bacteria called Frankia. In this review we have looked into two main aspects of this symbiosis. First we have made a detailed account of the macrosymbiont i.e. Hippophae. Since Hippophae has food and medicinal properties and are widely used in cosmetic production, we excavated the antioxidant activity of various parts of Hippophae including fruits, seeds, bark and leaf. People of Indo-Tibetan plateau adapt a special agro-technique to cultivate Hippophae. The technique has been discussed here. A detail report of this plant including their distribution and various ecological parameters has also been done. On the other hand we have also elucidate about the microsymbiont present in root nodule of Hippophae i.e. Frankia. Frankia is filamentous actinomycetes which fix atmospheric nitrogen to the soil and therefore increase the soil-fertility. A detailed account of morphology. anatomy, phylogeny and ecology of Frankia has been illustrated here. The diversity of Frankia in soil is another interesting topic and the speciation of this bacterium is an everlasting controversy. We have given a closer look to the genetic diversity and phylogenetic relationships of Frankia at intra and inter generic level.
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    Bioinformatics of pathogenic food bacteria
    (University of North Bengal, 2012-03) Mondal, Uttam K; Sen, Arnab; Bothra, Asim K
    Cholera is a fatal water borne disease caused by Vibrio cholerae. The primary symptoms include profuse watery diarrhea, muscle cramps and vomiting of clear fluid leading to rapid dehydration and electrolyte imbalance. and death in some cases. The causal organism i.e. Vibrio cholerae was first isolated by an Italian anatomist. Filippo Pacini in 1854. With the advent of genome sequencing technology, several Vibrio cholerae strains have been sequenced and available in public domain. This provided the opportunity for the scientists to study their genome in details. In the present review we have looked into the genetics of food pathogen as a whole, with special reference to research on V. cholerae. We have also critically reviewed various aspects of Bioinformatics like codon usage patterns, phylogenetic studies, studies on structural bioinformatics etc. on food borne bacteria. We are confident that the present review will help the researchers of food pathogenic biology to obtain valuable information about the present status of bioinformatics of food pathogenic bacteria and future outlook of these aspects.
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    Bioinformatics of codon usage pattern in pathogenic proteobacteria Burkholderia mallei
    (University of North Bengal, 2010-03) Ghosh, Manash K; Bothra, Asim K; Sen, Arnab
    Burkholderia mallei are pathogenic gram negative ß Proteobacteria those are available in Africa, Asia, Middle East, Central and South America and abundantly known as the causal organism of glanders. In this study, the synonymous patterns of four Burkholderia mallei (Burkholderia mallei ATCC 23344, Burkholderia mallei NCTC 10229, Burkholderia mallei NCTC 10247, Burkholderia mallei SAVP1) genome were compared and analyzed to each other. It was observed that Burkholderia mallei have high G+C content and moderately biased. Using cogon adaptation index (CAI) as a numerical estimator of gene expression level where ribosomal protein coding genes were considered as a reference of highly expressed genes. Here, we also studied the functional analysis of the PHX genes, gene expression level correspondence analysis and horizontally transferred pathogenicity related genes activity. COGs are also associated with metabolism especially those linked to carbohydrate metabolism and amino acid transport.