Entries by Kavita Joshi

The biosynthetic gene cluster for the active compound of a widely used medicinal plant, ashwagandha

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Withania somnifera (ashwagandha) is popularly known for its most prominent bioactive compound called withanolide. This natural product has enormous medicinal potential and has traditionally been used in the Indian Ayurvedic system for more than 3000 years to treat various illnesses. However, the industrial production of withanolide remains a bottleneck due to the complex pathway and expensive extraction […]

Win-win underground relationship of crops and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi

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Community and ecosystem ecology are the main pillars of agroecology. Plants exude various chemicals from their roots to communicate with  belowground microorganisms to boost productivity. This article by Urcelay et al. offers a new perspective to understand the interaction between plants and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) and highlights how flavonoids (FLVs) and strigolactones (SLs) act […]

Rapid shifts in the patterns of gene expression shapes flowering plant diversity

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Flowering plants are the most widespread group of plants, occupying almost every environment on our planet. They play important roles in maintaining the earth’s biodiversity and have a remarkably high rate of diversification. What’s always puzzled scientists is how they became so incredibly diverse. To explore this Schuster and colleagues looked at how gene activity […]