Profile
The group’s research focuses on utilizing the rich natural variation available in the natural populations and crop wild relatives for sustainable crop improvement. Growing global demands for food and forage necessitates crop improvement programmes that can address the triple challenges of higher productivity, climate resilience, and nutritional security. Effective utilization of available and novel genetic resources is a key strategy for enhanced crop improvement. We focus majorly on the oilseed crop – Brassica juncea and its relatives. We explore the natural variation in the wild species as well as in germplasm collections for disease resistance, and oil quality traits. Further, we utilize the information gleaned from these explorations for crop improvement either through genomics-assisted breeding and/or genome editing approaches.
Current Focus Areas
Genomics of Brassica crops and their wild relatives
High-throughput phenotyping for fungal diseases and yield parameters
Quantitative trait loci (QTL) mapping and GWAS for gene/marker discovery
Plant-pathogen interactions of Brassica juncea and Alternaria brassicae
Plant-pathogen interactomes for genome editing of host susceptibility factors
Selected Publications
Paritosh K*, Rajarammohan S*, Yadava SK, Sharma S, Verma R, Mathur S, Mukhopadhyay A, Gupta V, Pradhan AK, Kaur J, and Pental D. (2024). A chromosome-scale assembly of Brassica carinata (BBCC) accession HC20 containing resistance to multiple pathogens and an early generation assessment of introgressions into B. juncea (AABB). Plant Journal, https://doi.org/10.1111/tpj.16794. * Equal first authors
Rajarammohan S, Kaur L, Verma A, Singh D, Mantri S, Roy JK, Sharma TR, Pareek A, Kandoth PK. (2023). Genome sequencing and assembly of Lathyrus sativus - a nutrient-rich hardy legume crop. Scientific Data, 10:32.
Rajarammohan S. (2023). Transcriptome analysis of the necrotrophic pathogen Alternaria brassicae reveals a biphasic mode of pathogenesis in Brassica juncea. Microbiology Spectrum, doi: https://doi.org/10.1128/spectrum.02939-22.
Duhan D, Gajbhiye S, Jaswal R, Singh RP, Sharma TR, Rajarammohan S. (2021). Functional characterisation of the Nep1-like protein effectors of the necrotrophic pathogen - Alternaria brassicae. Frontiers in Microbiology, 12:738617. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2021.738617.
Rajarammohan S, Pental D, and Kaur J. (2019). Near-complete genome assembly of Alternaria brassicae - a necrotrophic pathogen of Brassica crops. Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions, 32:8.