Oilseeds are crucial for the nutritional security of the global population. The conventional technology used for oil extraction from oilseeds is by solvent extraction. In solvent extraction, n-hexane is used as a solvent for its attributes such as simple recovery, non-polar nature, low latent heat of vaporization (330 kJ/kg) and high selectivity to solvents. However, usage of hexane as a solvent has lead to several repercussions such as air pollution, toxicity and harmfulness that prompted to look for alternative options. To circumvent the problem, green solvents could be a promising approach to replace solvent extraction. In this review, green solvents and technology like aqueous assisted enzyme extraction are better solution for oil extraction from oilseeds. Enzyme mediated extraction is eco-friendly, can obtain higher yields, cost-effective and aids in obtaining co-products without any damage. Enzyme technology has great potential for oil extraction in oilseed industry. Similarly, green solvents such as terpenes and ionic liquids have tremendous solvent properties that enable to extract the oil in eco-friendly manner. These green solvents and technologies are considered green owing to the attributes of energy reduction, eco-friendliness, non-toxicity and non-harmfulness. Hence, the review is mainly focussed on the prospects and challenges of green solvents and technology as the best option to replace the conventional methods without compromising the quality of the extracted products.

Understanding the plant-pathogen interactions is of utmost importance to design strategies for minimizing the economic deficits caused by pathogens in crops. With an aim to identify genes underlying resistance to downy mildew, a major disease responsible for productivity loss in pearl millet, transcriptome analysis was performed in downy mildew resistant and susceptible genotypes upon infection and control on 454 Roche NGS platform. A total of ~685 Mb data was obtained with 1 575 290 raw reads. The raw reads were pre-processed into high-quality (HQ) reads making to ~82% with an average of 427 bases. The assembly was optimized using four assemblers viz. Newbler, MIRA, CLC and Trinity, out of which MIRA with a total of 14.10 Mb and 90118 transcripts proved to be the best for assembling reads. Differential expression analysis depicted 1396 and 936 and 1000 and 1591 transcripts up and down regulated in resistant inoculated/resistant control and susceptible inoculated/susceptible control respectively with a common of 3644 transcripts. The pathways for secondary metabolism, specifically the phenylpropanoid pathway was up-regulated in resistant genotype. Transcripts up-regulated as a part of defense response included classes of R genes, PR proteins, HR induced proteins and plant hormonal signaling transduction proteins. The transcripts for skp1 protein, purothionin, V type proton ATPase were found to have the highest expression in resistant genotype. Ten transcripts, selected on the basis of their involvement in defense mechanism were validated with qRT-PCR and showed positive co-relation with transcriptome data. Transcriptome analysis evoked potentials of hypersensitive response and systemic acquired resistance as possible mechanism operating in defense mechanism in pearl millet against downy mildew infection.

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Polished rice is poor source of micronutrients, however wide genotypic variability exists for zinc uptake and remobilization and zinc content in brown and polished grains in rice. Two landraces (Chittimutyalu and Kala Jeera Joha) and one popular improved variety (BPT 5204) were grown under zinc sufficient soil and their analyses showed high zinc in straw of improved variety, but high zinc in polished rice in landraces suggesting better translocation ability of zinc into the grain in landraces. Transcriptome analyses of the panicle tissue showed 41182 novel transcripts across three samples. Out of 1011 differentially expressed exclusive transcripts by two landraces, 311 were up regulated and 534 were down regulated. Phosphate transporter-exporter (PHO), proton-coupled peptide transporters (POT) and vacuolar iron transporter (VIT) showed enhanced and significant differential expression in landraces. Out of 24 genes subjected to quantitative real time analyses for confirmation, eight genes showed significant differential expression in landraces. Through mapping, six rice microsatellite markers spanning the genomic regions of six differentially expressed genes were validated for their association with zinc in brown and polished rice using recombinant inbred lines (RIL) of BPT 5204/Chittimutyalu. Thus, this study reports repertoire of genes associated with high zinc in polished rice and a proof concept for deployment of transcriptome information for validation in mapping population and its use in marker assisted selection for biofortification of rice with zinc.