title: A transcriptomic approach for exploring the molecular basis for dosha-balancing property-based classification of plants in Ayurveda.
abstract: In Ayurveda, a healthy body is defined by a balance among the three doshas (Vata, Pitta, Kapha) and ailments result due to imbalances among them. It prescribes specific plant parts/tissues collected in a season-specific manner for curing dosha-related imbalances but the plants prescribed for treating a particular dosha imbalance belong to taxonomically diverse families and often contain similar classes of phytomolecules, making it difficult to provide a phytochemical validation for any similarity that might exist among them. This exploratory study hypothesised that plants of the same dosha-curing group may have similarity at the transcript level. For proving/disproving the hypothesis, cDNA-AFLP and specific expression subset analysis (SESA) were carried out on the Ayurveda-defined active tissues of four representative plants each of the three dosha-balancing groups. cDNA-AFLP analyses indicated that even though the plants belonging to a particular dosha-group may widely differ at the transcript level, there is a small fraction of transcripts that is monomorphic among their active tissues. SESA (Tester-active tissue cDNA; Driver-cDNA from other major tissue[s]) generated 803 subtractive ESTs from the twelve plants that yielded 150 unigenes upon assembly (of ESTs from each plant separately). Cross-plant EST assembly for plants in the same dosha group also corroborated the results. Although a distinct pattern of transcripts was not observed across all the plants in a particular dosha group, some commonalities were obtained that need further characterization towards searching for the hitherto elusive similarity among plants of the same group.
authors: CSIR-Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants, P.O. CIMAP, Lucknow 226015, Uttar Pradesh, India. ashupov@yahoo.com
authors: Ashutosh K
authors: AK
authors: Shukla
authors: Maneesha
authors: M
authors: Mall
authors: Santosh K
authors: SK
authors: Rai
authors: Shefali
authors: S
authors: Singh
authors: Priya
authors: P
authors: Nair
authors: Gaurav
authors: G
authors: Parashar
authors: Ajit K
authors: AK
authors: Shasany
authors: Subhash C
authors: SC
authors: Singh
authors: Vinod K
authors: VK
authors: Joshi
authors: Suman P S
authors: SP
authors: Khanuja
mesh_terms: D054458:Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism Analysis; D000529:Complementary Therapies; D018076:DNA, Complementary / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D030541:Databases, Genetic; D020224:Expressed Sequence Tags; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D018506:Gene Expression Regulation, Plant; D006801:Humans; D007194:India; D008515:Medicine, Ayurvedic; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010944:Plants / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D018076:DNA, Complementary