My focus is on abiotic stress management in crop plants especially heat and salinity which is a major problem nowdays. We are looking at plants which are naturally tolerant to these abiotic stresses. This will provide an insight into the various mechanisms involved in providing the tolerance. My group is also studying the role of various microbial genes in improving tolerance to various abiotic stresses in plants. We are also pursuing the development of genomic resources including deep transcriptome analysis in the crops tolerant to salinity and heat stress like ragi and Kharchia local wheat with a long term goal of developing climate change resilient crop plants.
Awards & Honors
Fellow, Society of Applied Biotechnology, India (in 2013)
Received the second best research paper award in the National Conference on Changing Scenario of Agriculture in Madhya Pradesh: Prospects and Challenges held on 1-2 September 2013 at Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh.
Externally funded projects
National Initiative on Climate Resilient Agriculture: ICAR
Bioprospecting of RNA chaperones in microorganisms and development of osmotic tolerance rice: Department of Biotechnology
Genomics and Phenomics of Ragi: Department of Biotechnology
Kanika, Dogra T and Nain L (2010). Biochemical and molecular characterization of a rhizobitoxine producing Bradyrhizobium from pigeon pea growing under arid conditions. FoliaMicrobiol., 55 (3): 233-238.
Kanika, Dogra T and Nain L (2010). Biochemical and molecular characterization of Mesorhizobium ciceri containing acdS gene. J. Pl. Biochem. Biotechnol., 19(1):107-110.
V. Gupta, C. Natarajan, Kanika and R.Prasanna (2010). Identification and characterization of endoglucanases for fungicidal activity in Anabaena laxa. J. App. Phycol., 23(1):73-81.
Rana, A., Saharan, B., Joshi, M., Prasanna, R., K. Kanika and Nain, L. (2011). Identification of multi-trait PGPR isolates and evaluating their potential as inoculants for wheat. Annals of Microbiology. 61:893-900.
K. Pandey, P. Chaudhary, S. B. Singh, A. Arora, Kanika, S. Chaudhry and L. Nain (2012). Deciphering the traits associated with PAH degradation by a novel Serratia marcesencs L11 strain J. Env. Sci. and Health (Part A-Toxic/Hazardous Substance & Environmental Engineering),47(5): 755-65.
Etika Goyal, R.S. Singh and K. Kanika (2013). Isolation and functional characterization of Salt overly sensitive 1 (SOS1) gene promoter from Salicornia brachiata Roxb." Biol. Plant., 57(3):465-473.
Natrajan, C, Gupta, V., K, Kanika and Prasanna, R. (2013). Molecular characterization of a fungicidal endoglucanase from cyanobacterium Calothrix elenkinii. Biochem Genet 51: 766-779.
Dogra T, Priyadarshini A, Kanika, K, Singh A and Singh, NK. (2013). Identification of genes involved in salt tolerance and symbiotic nitrogen fixation in chickpea rhizobium Mesorhizobium ciceri Ca 181. Symbiosis 61:135-143.
Kanika K, Goyal E, Singh AK, Singh DP and Nain L. (2014). Genomic Approaches for Identification of Genes from PGPR involved in Plant Growth and Antibiosis. In: Fertilizer Technology Vol. 1 (eds. Sinha S, Pant KK and Govil JN) Studium Press LLC, USA pp. 295-338.
Kanika K, Singh A.K., Solanke A.U. and Dogra T. (2014). Role of microbes in mitigating effect of abiotic stress in agriculture. In: Abiotic stress: Challenges and prospects. (Eds. Ratnakumar P, Bhagat K and Singh Y) Today and Tomorrow Publishers, New Delhi, pp. 231-257.
Solanke AU., Raghavendrarao S, Kanika and Pattanayak D. (2014). Heat stress responses in plants: insight into physiological and molecular mechanisms. In: Abiotic Stress: Challenges and prospects (Eds. Ratnakumar P, Bhagat K and Singh Y) Today and Tomorrow Publishers, New Delhi, pp. 151-168.
Amolkumar US, Tribhuvan KU, Kanika. (2014). Genomics: An Integrative approach for molecular biology. In: Biotechnology: Progress and Prospects. Studium Press LLC, USA, pp. 238-274.
Singh A, Kumar K, Pandey AK, Sharma A, Singh SB, Kanika K, Arora A and Nain L. (2015). Pyrene Degradation by Biosurfactant Producing Bacterium Stenotrophomonas maltophilia. Agricultural Research 4(1):42–47.
Singh A, Singh DP, Tiwari R, Kanika K, Singh RV, Singh S, Prassana R, Saxena AK and Nain L. (2015). Taxonomic and functional annotation of gut bacterial communities of Eisenia foetida and Perionyx excavates. Microbiol. Res. Doi: 10.1016/j.micres.2015.03.003.
Padaria JC, Yadav R, Tarafdar A, Lone SA, Kanika K, Sivalingam PN (2016). Molecular cloning and characterization of drought stress responsive abscisic acid-stress-ripening (Asr 1) gene from wild jujube, Ziziphus nummularia (Burm.f.) Wight & Arn. Molecular Biology Reports. DOI 10.1007/s11033-016-4013-z.
Goyal E, Amit SK, Singh RK, Mahato AK, Chand S, and Kanika K. (2016). Transcriptome profiling of the salt-stress response in Triticum aestivum cv. Kharchia Local. Scientific Report 6,27752; doi10.1038/srep27752.
MM Mahajan, E Goyal, AK Singh, K Gaikwad, K Kanika. 2017. Transcriptome dynamics provide insights into long-term salinity stress tolerance in Triticum aestivum cv. Kharchia Local. Plant Physiology and Biochemistry 121, 128-139
Priyanka Singh, Mahesh M. Mahajan, Nagendra Kumar Singh, Dinesh Kumar and Kanika.2019.Physiological and molecular response under salinity stress in bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.).Journal of Plant Biochemistry and Biotechnology 10.1007/s13562-019-00521-3
Mahajan, Mahesh & Goyal, Etika & k singh, Amit & Gaikwad, Kishor and Kanika, K. 2019. Shedding light on response of Triticum aestivum cv. Kharchia Local roots to long-term salinity stress through transcriptome profiling. Plant Growth Regulation. 90. 10.1007/s10725-019-00565-4.