The Ocimum Genome

Description

This book provides an overview of the Ocimum genus from its genetic diversity to genome sequences, metabolites and their therapeutic utilities. Tulasi, Ocimum tenuiflorum, as a member of the family Lamiaceae, is a sacred plant in India. The plants of this genus Ocimum are collectively referred to as Basil and holy basil is worshipped in the Hindu religion. Basils are reservoirs of diverse terpenoids, phenylpropanoids and flavonoids, in addition to commercially important aromatic essential oils. In 2016, two working groups in India published the genome sequence in two different genotypes of Ocimum tenuiflorum. To help the readers understand the complexities of the genus and different chemotypes, this book accumulates all the available information on this medicinal plant including the genome. The complete knowledge may enable researchers to generate specific chemotypes in basil either through conventional breeding or development of transgenic lines. It also makes it possible to investigate the medicinal nature of holy basil compared to different species of the same genus. Front Matter ....Pages i-xvii Ocimum as a Promising Commercial Crop (R. K. Srivastava, Sanjay Kumar, R. S. Sharma)....Pages 1-7 Ocimum Species: A Longevity Elixir (Aakanksha Pant, Rakesh Pandey)....Pages 9-24 Ocimum: The Holy Basil Against Cardiac Anomalies (Vishnu Sharma, Debabrata Chanda)....Pages 25-36 Evolutionary Analysis of a Few Protein Superfamilies in Ocimum tenuiflorum (A. Gandhimathi, Nitish Sathyanarayanan, Meenakshi Iyer, Rachit Gupta, R. Sowdhamini)....Pages 37-60 Systematic Position, Phylogeny, and Taxonomic Revision of Indian Ocimum (Amit Kumar, Ashutosh K. Shukla, Ajit Kumar Shasany, Velusamy Sundaresan)....Pages 61-72 Genetics, Cytogenetics, and Genetic Diversity in the Genus Ocimum (Soni Gupta, Abhilasha Srivastava, Ajit Kumar Shasany, Anil Kumar Gupta)....Pages 73-87 Traditional Plant Breeding in Ocimum (R. K. Lal, Pankhuri Gupta, C. S. Chanotiya, Sougata Sarkar)....Pages 89-98 Genomic Resources of Ocimum (Saumya Shah, Shubhra Rastogi, Ajit Kumar Shasany)....Pages 99-110 Triterpene Functional Genomics in Ocimum (Sumit Ghosh)....Pages 111-126 Ocimum Genome Sequencing—A Futuristic Therapeutic Mine (Shubhra Rastogi, Ajit Kumar Shasany)....Pages 127-148