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Microorganisms and their hosts communicate through an array of signals. Many physiological processes regulated in quorum sensing (QS) are dependent on auto-inducers, like N-acyl-homoserine lactones (AHLs) as in numerous groups of both gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria. In vitro grown seven-day old chickpea seedlings treated with plant growth promoting bacteria (PGPRs) were used to screen the AHL mimicking and for phytochemical substances like phytohormones and secondary metabolites such as phenolics and flavonoids. Potential anti-quorum sensing (anti-QS) activity surrounding the roots on semi-solid agar lawn of Chromobacterium violaceum (ATCC12742) was observed. Crude protein (4.46–8.30 μg/mL) and methanolic extracts (100 μg/mL) of seedling gave moderate anti-QS activity against CV12742 anti QS bioassay, respectively. Crude protein and methanolic extract of Bacillus amyloliquefaciens (34.00 ± 2.23; 34.00 ± 4.33 mm) and B. subtilis A (27.00 ± 2.10; 3.29 ± 2.16 mm) treated samples showed higher zone of inhibition due to anti-QS activity. Phytohormone analysis using LC–MS for zeatin, auxin and methyl jasmonate (MeJA) indicated that phytohormones were significantly upregulated by 1909.80 ng/g FW, 669.67 ng/g FW and 244.55 ng/g FW, respectively in Pseudomonas brassicacearum treated seedlings compared to control. UHPLC of PGPR treated seedlings showed overly expressed gallic acid, protocatechuic acid, catechin, p-hydroxybenzoic acid, caffeic acid, catechol, vanillin, and ferulic acid in B. amyloliquefaciens treated seedlings compared to others. Enrichment analysis identified significant pathways related to metabolism, biosynthesis of secondary metabolites. The present study indicates that chickpea neutralizes an extensive range of functional responses to AHLs that may play important role in legume host-microbe interactions. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12298-021-01034-x.

The dynamics of a particle in a spherical box (PISB) in the presence of a static electric field is analyzed. According to recent research, the electric field has an interesting effect on information measurements like Shannon entropy. In this work, we propose to study the influence of the external electric field on entropic measures of a PISB. The total Shannon entropy $$S_\mathrm{T}$$ in the presence of a static electric field shows variations with the confining radius, but $$S_\mathrm{T}$$ remains constant with the confining radius in the absence of a static electric field. We calculated different quantum entropic measures of PISB with and without the external electric field. The Shannon entropy of considered levels with confinement and electric field is studied in detail. It is shown the electric field shows considerable modification on $$S_\mathrm{T}$$ and other parameters. We have also calculated corresponding Kullback–Leibler distance in position and momentum space.

Various information theoretic measures, complexities and their inequalities are studied for hydrogen atom under modified Hulthen potential which is a combination of Hulthen potential and inverse square potential. In addition, spherical confinement is also considered. Few of these results are compared with the results are available in the literature. In particular the Shannon entropy for free and confined atom is detailed for many states. The effects of inverse square potential parameter (‘a’ which is either positive or negative) on Shannon entropy and Fisher information is studied in confined and free region of atom. The Bialynicki-Birula-Mycielski (BBM) inequality is verified for the confined system.

The present work involves the study of radial quantum confinement of two-dimensional hydrogen atom in the presence of a magnetic field. The corresponding Schrodinger equation has been solved numerically. Both radial confinement and magnetic field are found to significantly alter the energy spectrum.

This study pertains to the effects of heavy metal salts viz., copper (Cu), manganese (Mn), lead (Pb) and zinc (Zn) on the chickpea accession ICC-4812. The salts were given as treatments to the chickpea seeds at various ascending levels of doses till proving toxic. The treatment of 24 h soaked and swollen seeds were then extended to 7 days duration from the date of treatment. Atomic absorption spectrophotometric analysis of bioassay tissue Cicer, showed maximum uptake of 9.41 mg/g and minimum of 1.65 mg/g tissue dry weight for Pb and Zn respectively. The study reveals that enhanced antioxidant responses are associated with substantial proline accumulation indicating induced stress. Ferric reducing antioxidant power assay measuring antioxidant activity was highest in the chickpea seedling treated with Zn, whereas, free radical scavenging activity was highest in the treatments with Mn. The total phenolic and flavonoid contents ranged between 0.24–0.97 and 0.27–1.00 mg/g of dry matter content respectively. Higher Pb and Zn doses seem to elicit higher proline levels therefore, suggesting an extreme condition of induced abiotic stress. Dose dependent protein oxidation coupled with DNA degradation was observed in all treatments, depicting genotoxicity. Unweighted pair-group method arithmetic average analysis presented similarity coefficients between the treatments.

Twenty chickpea accessions belonging to ten different countries of the world have been subjected to phylogeny and length variations from nuclear ribosomal DNA (nr DNA). ITS1–5.8S–ITS2 regions of Cicer accessions were used for amplification in two sets, each comprising a reverse and forward ITS primers. Lengths of ITS-1 of C. arietinum and C. reticulatum ranged from 340 to 350 bp whereas that of ITS-2 from 400 to 410 bp. In all the 20 accessions investigated, GC content in ITS-1 ranged from 40 to 55% and in ITS-2 from 42 to 55%. Sequencing of polymerase chain reaction product from ITS-1 showed variability in 278 and 290 bp due to adenine and guanine nucleotide base pairs. BLAST search for ITS-1 region revealed highest homology (99%) with four strains of C. arietinum accessions. Whereas, ITS2 showed 100% homology with C. arietinum and 99% homology with that of C. echinospermum.

Moth bean (Vigna aconitifolia (Jacq.) Marechal) is considered as one of the underutilised food legume vis-a-vis the Indian sub-continent. The seeds of this legume are a rich source of soluble proteins for nutrition. PCR-based marker characterizations for assessing genetic diversity are almost negligible in this crop. Present investigation, therefore, employed inter simple sequence repeat (ISSR) markers to assess the genetic diversity amongst 25 accessions. The di and penta nucleotide repeat markers showed higher polymorphism on amplification than those observed using trinucleotide markers. ISSR marker UBC-811 detected 36.15% polymorphism while UBC-879 detected 61.03% with an average of 9.7% on each primer. Based on dendrogram analysis, a logical similarity between molecular data and geographical origin was corroborated. The accessions cultivated in western coast of India were closely related than north-western and arid regions of India. The accessions like Maru, Jadiya and Jawala can be recommended as parents for further breeding programmes to procure additional variation complexes in moth bean genetic stocks.