achuit

Principal Scientist
Areas of Interest: 

Currently my research works targets hosts and plant viruses interactions, and developing strategies to control begomoviruses in plants. Begomoviruses (Family – Geminiviridae) are very destructive viruses that can cause devastating diseases in vegetable crops in all tropical regions of the world including India. Their genomes are composed of circular single stranded DNA and they are subjected to gene silencing through an unknown mechanism. We have identified distinct new species of begomoviruses causing severe leaf curl diseases on tomato (Tomato leaf curl Patna virus, Tomato leaf curl Ranchi virusTomato leaf curl Gandhinagar virus), on radish (Radish leaf curl virus), on Okra (Okra leaf curl New Delhi virus) and on Chilli ( Chilli leaf curl Vellanad virus, Chilli leaf curl Salem virus). For the first time, we have demonstrated Koch’s postulates using clone DNA molecules associated with radish leaf curl disease and Okra leaf curl disease by agroinoculation and also studied the pseudo-recombination and synergism between two distinct species of begomoviruses, Radish leaf curl virus (RaLCV) and Croton yellow vein mosaic virus (CYVMV) that infect radish.  Recently, we have initiated CRISPR-Cas9 mediated broad spectrum resistance against begomoviruses in vegetable crops.

    • DBT-Postdoctoral fellowship
    • North zone award of Prof. M.J. Narasimhan Academic Merit Award by Indian Phytopathological Society, 2007
Publications: 
  1. AK Singh, et. al., Bhendi yellow vein mosaic virus and bhendi yellow vein mosaic betasatellite cause enation leaf curl disease and alter host phytochemical contents in okra. Plant Disease. 2021.

  2. Sangeeta,  AK Singh* et. al., (*Corresponding Author). Two distinct monopartite begomovirus-betasatellite complexes in western India cause tomato leaf curl disease. Virus Research, 295, 2021.
  3. R Krishna, WA Ansari, DK Jaiswal, AK Singh, JP Verma, M Singh. Co-overexpression of AtDREB1A and BcZAT12 increases drought tolerance and fruit production in double transgenic tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) plants.  Environ Exp Bot 184, 2021.
  4. FD Chahwala,  AK Singh* et al.,  (*Corresponding Author). A novel monopartite begomovirus and satellites associated with yellow mosaic disease of Sida spp. in India. Arch Virol 166, 299–302, 2021.
  5. SG Karkute, R Krishna, WA Ansari, B Singh, PM Singh, M Singh, AK Singh* (*Corresponding Author). Heterologous expression of the AtDREB1A gene in tomato confers tolerance to chilling stress. Biol. Plant., 63; 268-277, 2019.
  6. RV Kumar*AK Singh* et. al,. (*Equal Authorship). Complexity of begomovirus and betasatellite populations associated with chilli leaf curl disease in India. J. Gen. Virol. 96 3143-3158, 2015.
  7. AK Singh, B Chattopadhyay, S Chakraborty. Biology and interactions of two distinct monopartite begomoviruses and betasatellites associated with radish leaf curl disease in India. Virol J 9 (1) 1-18, 2012.