Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports and published literatures have shown that the concentrations of ozone (O₃) at ground level has increased 60–100% during last century due to industrialization, climate change and other anthropogenic sources and expected to increase upto 18% by 2100. Similarly, Nitrogen (N) deposition at ground level has increased 25 kg N ha^-1 year^-1 in Europe, 50-100 kg N ha^-1 year^-1 in the Netherlands and 3.1 to 18.2 kg N ha^-1 year^-1 in Japan. The high levels O₃ and N in atmosphere are considered as pollutants and decreased the growth of both agricultural crops and forest trees worldwide and particularly in Asian countries. For example, several tree species such as Pines, larch, Ermani’s birch and fir in the mountainous areas of Europe, America, Australia and Japan are declining and possible causes of this decline are O₃ and N deposition. The majority of forests’s rhizospheres are symbiotically colonized by ectomycorrhizal fungi (ECM) and ECM help the host in uptake of water and nutrients. Although many studies have been conducted worldwide on physiological responses of forest trees to elevated O₃ and microorganisms present in the forest rhizosphere. However, in Pakistan, we could not find even a single study on this topic. Therefore, in this study, the effects of different level of O₃ and high nitrogen on three most important pines tress i) deodar (Cedrus deodara), ii) chir pine(Pinus roxburghii), iii) morinda spruce  (Picea smithiana) of Pakistan and their symbiotic relationship with ECM will be studied. In addition, growth and diversity of forest plants changed by changing the soil types such as serpentine soil is outcropped in many parts of the world due to an excess of toxic metals and low levels of essential nutrients. In this research, we will grow seedlings of three selected pine trees of Pakistan on serpentine, immature volcanic and brown forest soils with and without inoculation with ECM in order to find out the best pines trees and ECM species for different soils. The possible outcome of this research will be that the pine trees and symbiotic ECM fungi species that are most suitable to survive and grow on different soils become available for afforestation, as climates change and the risk of O₃ pollution and/or nitrogen deposition increases. 

Maize belongs to the Poaceae family which also includes the economically important grasses such as sorghum and sugarcane. It has the highest yield potential among all cereal crops due to its large leaf area. It uses C4 pathway for carbon fixation that is more efficient at high temperatures than the more common C3-pathway. Maize  has  good  economic  value. It is  cultivated  almost  all  over  the  world. Its production  is limited  by  environmental  stress  in  which draught  and  water  is  most  important.  Stress usually causes a decrease in crop production. It inhibits the photosynthesis of plants, causes changes of chlorophyll contents and components and damage of photosynthetic apparatus. Proteolysis or protein degradation is a complex process involving numerous signaling pathways of proteases in the cytoplasm, the nucleus and cell organelles. It is essential for biological and physiological processes, for cellular housekeeping and the stress response by removing abnormal or misfolded proteins, for supplying amino acids needed to make new proteins, for controlling metabolism, homeosis, programmed cell death of specific plant organs, cells embryogenesis, senescence and germination.  Proteolysis during biotic stresses and plant senescence is well documented but little is known about the role of endoproteases involved in drought stress response and their physiological significance. In the present work, we will the expression pattern of endoproteases particularly cysteine proteases and their natural inhibitors ‘cystatin’ under drought stress conditions.

Plants have been a valuable source of natural products for maintaining human health for a long period of time which has increased the exploitation of plant compounds for pharmaceutical purposes. In Pakistan and worldwide, the indigenous communities still give preference to herbal remedy over modern drugs for the treatment of diseases. Development of natural drugs from plants and plant parts has become a growing demand due to increasing microbial resistance to synthetic antibacterial drugs. Moreover, use of nanoparticles in combination with medicinal plant extractfor the inhibition of diseases is an emerging and efficient technique, is preferred over conventional biological processes and is safe human therapeutics. Silver nanoparticles possess their own antibacterial potential against different pathogens. The synergistic effect of plant based nanoparticles is expected to enhance the antimicrobial potential of plant extracts which contain biologically active compounds. However, the yield of these biological compounds is low to meet the growing public demand due to less accumulation in plant cells. The current study aims to identify antimicrobial potential of Bergeniaciliate wilton, Bergenia ciliate dixter, Bergeniastrachei, Paeoniaemodi and Rumexhaustatus, important medicinal plants of Pakistan against disease causing bacteria (E. coli, P. eeruginosa, K. pneumonia, S. dysenteriae, S. typhi and S. aureus) and fungal strain (A. niger, A. fumigatus, F. solani and C. albicans)in human beings. After preliminary evaluation, medicinal plant species showing huge antimicrobial will be selected for the identification and quantification of antimicrobial genes particularly  defensin and cystatin in these plants

Soil pollution is an unavoidable evil; many crude-oil exploring communities have been identified to be the most ecologically impacted regions in the world due to hydrocarbon pollution and their concurrent health risks. Several clean-up technologies have been reported for the removal of hydrocarbons in polluted soils but most of them are either very expensive, require the integration of advance mechanization and/or cannot be implemented in small scale. However, ‘Bioremediation’ has been reported as an efficient, cost effective and environment friendly technology for clean-up of hydrocarbons polluted soils. Here, we suggest the implementation synergistic mechanism of bioremediation such as rhizosphere actions of plant and microorganisms which involves the exploitation of plant and microorganisms for effective and speedy remediation of hydrocarbons polluted soils.In this mechanism, plant’s action is synergized with the soil microorganisms through the root rhizospheres to promote soil remediation, the microorganisms benefit from the root metabolites (exudates) and the plant in turn benefits from the microbial recycling/solubilizing of mineral nutrients. Harnessing the abilities of plants and microorganisms is a potential headway for cost effective clean-up of hydrocarbons polluted sites; such technology could be very important in countries with great oil producing activities/records for many years but still developing.

Hyperaccumulator plants could be used on polluted soil in order to remove heavy metals. Brachiaria Reptans, Cannabis sativa and Parthenium hyesterophorous are considered the most effective intaking up metals in contaminated areas of Rawalpindi and Islamabad.However, there is a prime need to identify the target genes involved in this process in order to develop transgenic plants. Therefore, in this project, we will identify the target genes involved in the heavy metal uptake. In addition, the plants produce different proteins under stress condition in order to survive and overcome stress. Among the different proteins, proteinase inhibitors “cystatins” plays an important role under biotic and abiotic stress. Our experimental system will consist of the production of recombinant cystatins in heterologous systems (such as E._coli) from medicinal plant Tagetes minuta. Production of recombinant proteins is widely used in pharmaceutical industry e.g. insulin that is used for diabetics patients, as well as in research for structural and/or biochemical studies of newly identified proteins. In this project we will identify and produce recombinant cystatins from medicinal plant Tagetes minutaand use them as biopesticides and against human diseases.

Salt stress is one of the major causes that limits agricultural productivity in world’s irrigated land. Agricultural sector faces the challenge of more food production to fulfill the needs of ever increasing population. Soil salinity creates nutrient deficiency, ion toxicity, osmotic and oxidative stress in plants. Plants have the mechanisms to adjust their internal environment to cope with adverse outer environment, e.g., by accumulating the compatible solutes like proline and glycine betaine in case of salt stress. However, such responses rely strongly on plant innate genetic potential as some plants can better perform in such stressful conditions while other plant species are unable to survive in such conditions. Unfortunately, most agricultural crops fall in the later class of plant species. Therefore, it is important to increase tolerance to salt stress of such crop plants by understanding the fundamental mechanisms and to improve the processes that naturally occur in crop plants under stressful environmental conditions like salinity.  Drought stress is another important environmental stress that limits crop productivity. Quantitative knowledge of the response of crops to water stress is vital for the better management of irrigated and dry land crops. Pea is an annual self-pollinated legume crop.  Its production is limited due to its salt and drought sensitive nature. There is need for extensive research to discover the genetic and biochemical mechanisms of pea in response to salt and drought stress. The current research is designed to investigate the underlying physiological, biochemical and molecular processes during salt stress both in hydroponics system and in soil and to find the salt stress tolerance level in three Pea varieties. In physiological and biochemical studies important ions like Na⁺, K⁺ and Ca²⁺ will be determined by atomic absorption spectrophotometer. Other important metabolites such as glycine betaine, jasmonates will be measured mainly by High Performance Liquid Chromatography. Enzyme assays will be performed through the standard reported protocols. In molecular part of the current research, genes like P5CS, P5CDH, GB1 etc. responsible for salt tolerance in pea crop will be identified and their phylogenetic relationship with these genes in other crops will be determined using comparative genomics approach. This study is expected to be helpful in identification of the important metabolites and genes involved in salinity response in pea crop. Also, the activities of important enzymes involved in drought response will be performed. The approaches used in this study could also be applied to other important crops to improve their capability to salt stress.