Research in tea has been limited to processed or packaged tea. Owing to its economical as well as medicinal importance, our work is focused on phytochemical extraction from mature fresh tea leaves based on extracting solvents with varying polarities with the prime focus on bio activity study using biochemical, microbial and in-silico approaches. Potent solvents were screened from different qualitative, quantitative and antioxidant tests. Antimicrobial screening was done along with its validation using GC-MS and in-silico approaches. Acetone extracts was found to be the most potent solvent for extraction followed by methanol and ethanol. Acetone and methanol extracts showed antagonist activity against Staphylococcus sp. with Minimum Inhibitory Concentration of 4 mg/ml and 8 mg/ml respectively. Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry identified bioactive compounds like Phenol, 3, 5-bis (1, 1-dimethylethyl), caffeine and Vitamin E as the probable compounds as antibacterial agents. Further in-silico results validated phenol as the most potent antimicrobial compound with its binding affinity of-7.2 kcal/mol to S. aureus DNA gyrase. Elaborate qualitative and quantitative phytochemical profiling thus gave an idea about the potency of particular solvent in extracting specific group of compounds. Bioactivity of potent extract against Staphylococcus sp. was recorded out of other bacterial strains investigated. GC-MS analysis of extracts gave insight into the type of compounds extracted. Further in-silico results provided interesting insights into the ability of phenol to bind against S. aureus DNA gyrase.

A novel actinomycete strain, assigned as Am3, was isolated from the root nodules of Alnus nepalensis at Mirik hills, India. Analysis of the 16s rRNA gene sequence placed this new strain within the genus Prauserella. The genome was sequenced by Illumina sequencing and resulting 5.33-Mbp high quality draft genome sequenced with a G + C content of 70.0 % and 4828 candidate protein-encoding genes. Phylogenetically, Prauserella clusters very close to Amycolatopsis and was previously placed under the genus Amycolatopsis. Our main focus was to reveal the genomic similarities and dissimilarities of the newly sequenced Prauserella sp. Am3 with the type strain, Prauserella rugosa DSM 43194 T, and to determine its relationship with Amycolatopsis, which is happened to be the closest genus of Prauserella. Taking an in silico approach, bioinformatic analysis revealed that the core genome of Amycolatopsis and Prauserella contained 1589 genes. The two Prauserella genomes shared approximately 4224 genes, and 237 and 245 unique genes were found in the P. rugosa and Prauserella sp. Am3 genomes, respectively. Analysis of various phylogenetic trees including a 16s rRNA gene tree, MLSA protein-based tree and concatenated core-genomebased tree, placed both Prauserella genomes together with Amycolatopsis halophila YIM 93233 as its closest neighbor. Blast Matrix analysis of the predicted proteomes revealed about 86 % homology between the two Prauserella genomes. Analysis of the strand variation property revealed the absence of replication-transcriptional selection. Overall, a high degree of similarity was found between the two Prauserella genomes and a high percentage of similarity occurred among the Prauserella genomes and Amycolatopsis halophila.

In the present study a group of four indigenous and less popular rice genotypes (Meghi, Panibhasha, Jabra and Sholey) reported by growers as submergence tolerant lines from flood prone areas of south Bengal were explored through study of nodal anatomy, physio-biochemical screening under submergence and genotyping with submergence tolerance linked rice microsatellite loci (RM loci). To identify the different allelic forms of different Sub1 compnents (Sub1A, Sub1B and Sub1C) among the studied lines, the genomic DNA of individual genotypes was amplified with three ethylene response factor like genes from Sub1 loci, located on rice chromosome 9. From the different physio-biochemical experiments performed in this investigation, it has been shown that Meghi and Jabra are the two probable potent genotypes which share common properties of both submergence tolerant and deep water nature whereas rest two genotypes (Sholey and Panibhasha) behave like typical deep water rice. The submergence tolerance property of Meghi was also confirmed from submergence tolerance linked SSR based genotyping by sharing with FR13A for some common alleles as reflected in fingerprint derived dendrogram. The rest of the genotypes shared a number of alleles and were included in a separate cluster. The common behaviour of Meghi and FR13A under submergence was also confirmed from genetic study of Sub1 loci through sharing of some common alleles for three Sub1 components (Sub1A, Sub1B and Sub1C loci). One SSR loci (RM 285) was identified as a potent molecular marker for submergence tolerance breeding programme involving these two selected rice lines (Meghi and Jabra) as donor plant through marker assisted

The medicinally and economically important tea plant of India lacks a report on barcode study. Thus, we aimed to establish the DNA barcode of some elite tea clones of Darjeeling and Dooars along with the study of variation within the chloroplast region. A thorough investigation of 29 tea clones based on the matK (maturase K) gene has been carried out in our study. The laid objectives were fulfilled following DNA isolation, purification, amplification of the matK region, and sequencing. The sequences were further analyzed using BLAST analysis and phylogenetic tree construction along with the study of the aligned consensus region among all the clones. A BLAST search of NCBI revealed 24 clones to share 100% identity with Camellia sinensis. The remaining 5 clones showed 99.29-99.89% identity with Camellia sinensis. However, clones such as 11125 and 11126 showed a higher percentage of similarity, that is, 99.87% and 99.57% with other species of Camellia when compared, respectively, to 99.61% and 99.29% with Camellia sinensis. The relatedness to other Camellia species was also evident from the distinct cluster in the phylogenetic tree. This study reports a total of 14 variable sites within the matK region where the high consensus region revealed a total of nine variable sites and the low consensus region revealed a total of five variable sites. Therefore, this study is the first report of barcode analysis of Indian tea clones, wherein we successfully utilized the single locus matK gene to study variation within the chloroplast region and also conclude that the matK region is not 100% conserved with the same species of Camellia.

The aim of this study was to qualitatively and quantitatively screen and identify major phytochemical groups from leaves extract of TV26 extracted by nine different solvents having different polarities. Qualitative screening suggested acetone, methanol, ethanol and ethyl acetate to be the most potent solvent for various phytochemical extractions like flavonoid, tannin, steroid, diterpenes, terpenoids, coumarin, cardiac glycoside, saponin, protein and reducing sugar. The highest percent of radical scavenging was recorded in cold water extracts (5mg/ml) i.e. 91.10% and was at par with 93.40% percent scavenging activity of ascorbic acid taken as standard (5mg/ml). Methanol, acetone, ethanol and ethyl acetate gave the best results with the total phenol content value (GAE) recorded as 100.60mg/g, 87.07mg/g, 58.73 mg/g and 51.47mg/g respectively with methanol giving the best result. Acetone extracts (5mg/ml) showed higher ferric reducing power with IC, value 426.45+ 1.12 μg/ml compared to the standard (ascorbic acid) 270.35-0.66 μg/ml. Our findings suggest that the polar solvents were more beneficial and potent against the other non polar counterparts during phytochemical extraction but the polarity of solvents need not be in increasing order since we can assume from our results that acetone being less polar than ethanol, methanol and water showed better results. In addition to different polarities, state of the sample and extraction technique is also crucial for better extraction.