Profile
Dr. Anish Kundu acquired expertise and worked in the area of plant growth and defense metabolism and plant's immunity against pathogens and insect herbivores. The major focus of the laboratory is to investigate the defense and growth related metabolic alteration of plant systems (both model and crop plants) during interactions with the ecologically important biotic factors, such as growth promoting endophytes, pathogens and insect herbivores. His lab uses molecular bio-techniques, global as well as targeted metabolomics aided with transcriptomics, chemo-informatics and computational statistical framework to find out key marker pathways, genes and functional metabolites involved in growth and defense of the plants during biotic interactions
Current Focus Areas
Exploration of rice 'metabolome' and 'hormonome' plasticity in adaptation of biotic and abiotic stress during interaction with growth promoting endophyte Piriformospora indica
Identification and functional characterization of growth and defense related biomarkers (metabolites, genes and pathways) in rice and elucidation of molecular mechanisms of biomarker mediated regulation of growth and defense in order to develop strategies for improvement of crop yield.
dentification and functional characterization of growth and defense related biomarkers in Ginger during interaction with growth promoting endophyte Piriformospora indica and investigation of metabolic basis of susceptibility and resistance in Zinigiber species against soft rot disease.
Selected Publications
Majumdar S, Kaur H, Rinella MJ, Kundu A, Vadassery J, Erbilgin N, Callway MR, Cadotte MW, Inderjit. 2023. Synergistic effects of canopy chemistry and autogenic soil biota on a global invader. Journal of Ecology. (doi.org/10.1111/1365-2745.1411)
Kundu A, Mishra S, Kundu P, Jogawat A, Vadassery J. 2022. Piriformospora indica recruits host-derived putrescine for growth promotion in plants. Plant Physiology. 188 (4): 2289-2307.
Jogawat A, Meena MK, Kundu A, Varma M, Vadassery J. 2020. Calcium channel CNGC19 mediates basal defense signaling to balance colonization of Piriformospora indica on Arabidopsis roots. Journal of Experimental Botany. 9: 2752-2768.
Kundu A, Mishra S and Vadassery J. 2018. Spodoptera litura-mediated chemical defense is differentially modulated in older and younger systemic leaves of Solanum lycopersicum. Planta. 248: 981-997.
Kundu A. 2017. Vanillin biosynthetic pathways in plants. Planta. 245: 1069-11078.