Research Focus

Ongoing work of lab is on following topics:

-Identification of PGPRs for growth promotion of important crops in western himalayan region eg. Saffron & Potato 

-Understanding the role of NBS-LRR genes in plant defense

-Understanding various aspects of Crocus sativus biology

Achievements / Awards

• Awarded “National Scholarship under Centre of Advance Study Scheme” scholarship during Masters under Delhi University (2002-2004).
• Awarded GATE-2003, with percentile 96.72 (All India Rank-112).
• Awarded CSIR-JRF 2004 (Top 20: called for SPMF test).
• 1st Prize as co-author in poster presentation during national conference at Mysore (2010).
• DBT-NIPGR short term research associateship from 2013.
• Travel grants from CICS, India to attend international conference New Phytologist: Next Generation Scientist held in Norwich, UK, 2014 (Did not avail). 

Other experiences:

• Editorial board member of Frontiers in Microbiology
• Editorial board member of Frontiers in Plant Science
• Reviewer of many Journals including PLoS One, Fronteirs in Genetics, Fronteirs in Microbiology, Frontiers in cellular and infection microbiology, Indian Journal of Traditional Knowledge and Genome
• Doctoral advisory committee member of various PhD scholars
• Assistant Professor at Academy of CSIR (AcSIR)
• Member of many committees at CSIR-IHBT

Major Publications

Shreenivas Kumar Singh, Ankita Shree, Sandhya Verma, Kunal Singh, Kamal Kumar, Vikas Srivastava, Ritu Singh, Samiksha Saxena, Agam Prasad Singh, Ashutosh Pandey, Praveen Kumar Verma, The nuclear effector ArPEC25 from the necrotrophic fungus Ascochyta rabiei targets the chickpea transcription factor CaβLIM1a and negatively modulates lignin biosynthesis, increasing host susceptibility, The Plant Cell, Volume 35, Issue 3, March 2023, Pages 1134–1159 

Mathan, L., Dubey, N., Verma, S., Singh, K. Transcription Factors Associated with Defense Response Against Fungal Necrotrophs. In: Wani, S.H., Nataraj, V., Singh, G.P. (eds) Transcription Factors for Biotic Stress Tolerance in Plants. Springer, Cham. (2022). doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-12990-2_4

Dubey, N., Singh, K.  The Role of Transcription Factors in Response to Biotic Stresses in Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.). In: Wani, S.H., Nataraj, V., Singh, G.P. (eds) Transcription Factors for Biotic Stress Tolerance in Plants. Springer, Cham. (2022) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-12990-2_12

Kanchan Yadav, Pooja Yadav, Kunal Singh Microbial-Mediated Molecular Mechanisms to Cope Up Salinity and Drought Stress in Plants Book Microbial Based Land Restoration Handbook, Volume 2, 1st Edition (2022)

Namo Dubey, Umesh Pankaj, Vimal Chandra Pandey, Kunal Singh Role of Plant-Microbial Secondary Metabolites in Stress Mitigation. Current Knowledge and Future Directions Book Microbial Based Land Restoration, Volume 1, 1^st Edition (2022)

Dubey Namo, Chaudhary Anjali and Singh Kunal Genome-Wide Analysis of TIR-NBS-LRR Gene Family in Potato Identified StTNLC7G2 Inducing Reactive Oxygen Species in Presence of Alternaria solani. Front. Genet. 12:791055. (2022) doi: 10.3389/fgene.2021.791055 (IF-4.59)

Shreenivas Kumar Singh, Sandhya Verma*, Kunal Singh*, Ankita Shree, Ritu Singh, Vikas Srivastava, Kamal Kumar, Ashutosh Pandey, Praveen Kumar Verma, The nuclear effector ArPEC25 from the necrotrophic fungus Ascochyta rabiei targets the chickpea transcription factor CaβLIM1a and negatively modulates lignin biosynthesis for host susceptibility. bioRxiv, 2021 doi.org/10.1101/2021.09.02.458738

Manisha Sinha, Ankita Shree, Kunal Singh, Kamal Kumar, Shreenivas Kumar Singh Vimlesh Kumar, Praveen Kumar Verma (2021) Modulation of fungal virulence through CRZ1 regulated F-BAR-dependent actin remodeling and endocytosis in chickpea infecting phytopathogen Ascochyta rabiei. PLoS Genetics, May, 2021; doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.1009137 (IF-6.02); Recognised in Nature-Index, 2022

R. Maurya, Y. Singh, M. Sinha, Kunal Singh, P. Mishra, S. K. Singh, S. Verma, K. Prabha, K. Kumar & P. K. Verma; (2020) Transcript Profiling Reveals Potential Regulators for Oxidative Stress Response of a Necrotrophic Chickpea Pathogen Ascochyta rabiei. 3 Biotech, Feb, 2020 (IF-2.46)

Namo Dubey and Kunal Singh (2018) Role of NBS-LRR proteins in plant defense. (Ch 5) In: Singh A, Singh I, (eds) Molecular Aspects of Plant-Pathogen Interaction. Springer Nature, ISBN 978-981-10-7371-7

Vinay Randhawa, Ashish Panghaliya, Kunal Singh (2016) Analysis of gene co-expression network to identify candidate stress responsive genes in potato (Solanum tuberosum). Journal of Proteins and Proteomics: 7(4), JPP74

Amaresh Chandra, P.K. Verma, N. Islam, M.P. Grisham R. Jain, A. Sharma, K. Roopendra, K. Singh, P. Singh, I. Verma & S. Solomon, (2015) Expression analysis of genes associated with sucrose accumulation in sugarcane (Saccharum spp. hybrids) varieties differing in content and time of peak sucrose storage. Plant Biology, 17(3): 608-617. (IF-3.08)

M Adil, K Singh, PK Verma, AU Khan (2014) Eugenol-induced suppression of biofilm-forming genes in Streptococcus mutans: An approach to inhibit biofilms.Journal of Global Antimicrobial Resistance, 2(4): 286-292. (IF-4.03)

Shadab Nizam; Rajesh Kumar Gazara; Sandhya Verma; Kunal Singh; Praveen Kumar Verma, (2014) Comparative structural modeling of six old yellow enzymes (OYEs) from the necrotrophic fungus Ascochyta rabiei: Insight into novel OYE classes with differences in cofactor binding, organization of active site residues and stereo preferences. PLoS ONE 9(4): e95989. (IF-3.2)

Sadaf Hasan, Kunal Singh, Mohd Danisuddin, Praveen K Verma and Asad U Khan (2014) Inhibition of major virulence pathways of Streptococcus mutans by Quercitrin and Deoxynojirimycin: a synergistic approach of infection control.PLoS ONE9(3): e91736. (IF-3.2)

Shadab Nizam, Sandhya Verma, Kunal Singh, Rashmi Aggarwal, Krishna Dutt Srivastava, , Praveen K Verma, (2012) High reliability transformation of the wheat pathogen Bipolaris sorokiniana using Agrobacterium tumefaciens.Journal of Microbiological Methods, 88(3): 386-92. (IF-2.46)

Sadaf Hasan, Mohd Danishuddin, Mohd Adil, Kunal Singh, Praveen K. Verma, Asad U. Khan (2012) Efficacy of E. officinalis on the Cariogenic Properties of Streptococcus mutans: A Novel and Alternative Approach to Suppress Quorum-Sensing Mechanism.PLoS ONE 7(7): e40319. (IF-3.2)

Kunal Singh, Shadab Nizam, Manisha Sinha, Praveen K Verma (2012). Comparative transcriptome analysis of the necrotrophic fungus Ascochyta rabiei during oxidative stress: Insight for fungal survival in the host plant. PLoS ONE 7(3): e33128. (IF-3.2)

Shadab Nizam*, Kunal Singh*, Praveen Verma (2010). Expression of the fluorescent proteins DsRed and EGFP to visualize early events of colonization of the chickpea blight fungus Ascochyta rabiei.Current Genetics 56(4): 391-399. (IF-3.88)

Refer to NCBI for complete list: 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=kunal+singh

Patents

N.A.

Research Group

 PhD Scholar

Ms Namo Dubey (UGC-JRF)

Ms Kanchan Yadav (UGC-JRF)

Ms Anjali Chaudhary (CSIR-JRF)

Ms Pooja Yadav (UGC-JRF)

Post Doctoral Fellow: Dr Anand Mishra, Dr Tina Roy

Project Assistant/Associate/other Staff: Rupali Katoch, Ankita Kumari, Dinesh Kumar (Lab attendent)

Interested in joining the lab?

Dedicated, passionate and motivated students with CSIR/UGC/DBT-JRF should contact for PhD positions.