School of Biotechnology

	P.PALANIVELU    Professor and Head    Dept.of Molecular Microbiology    pp@mrna.tn.nic.in	Publications Projects Research
	Research Interest: To understand the mechanism of survival and growth of thermophilic organisms at high temperature Exploiting thermophilic enzymes for the posible industrial uses. Developing transgenic plants agaist fungal pathogens.

Publications 1. Shaik Yazdani Basha and P. Palanivelu, "A modified alakaline lysis procedure for isolation of plasmids from E. coli". Curr. Sci. 66 (5): 335-336 (1994). 2. Shaik Yazdani Basha and P. Palanivelu, "Two simple non-enzymatic procedures to isolate high molecular weight DNA from fungi." Curr. Sci. 68 (6): 587 - 588 (1995). 3. S. Sathish Kumar and P. Palanivelu, "Plasmid purification using Sephacryl S1000 Column Chromatography". Indian J. Microbiol. 37 (1): 13 - 16 (1997). 4. Shaik Yazdani Basha and P. Palanivelu, "Enhanced activity of an invertase from Thermomyces lanuginosus with exogenous proteins". World J. Microbiol. & Biotechnol. 14: 603-605 (1998). 5. S. Sathish Kumar and P. Palanivelu, "Production and properties of pectinolytic enzymes from the thermophilic fungus Thermyces lanuginosus, "World J. Microbiol. & Biotechnol. 14: 781-782 (1998). 6. P. Palanivelu, "Fructofuranosyl hydrolases and transferases: Active sites and mechanism of action, " Indian J. Microbiol. 38: 177-185 (1998). 7. S. Sathish Kumar and P. Palanivelu, "Purification and characterization of a polygalacturanase from the thermophilic fungus, Thermomyces lanuginosus (World J. Microbiol & Biotechnol,15,643-646 (1999). 8. Shaik Yazdani Basha and P. Palanivelu, "Enhanced activity of an invertase from the thermophilic fungus Thermomyces lanuginosus by lipids" Indian J.Microbial,39,217-220 (1999). 9. Shaik Yazdani Basha and P. Palanivelu, "A Novel method for Immobilization of an invertase from the thermophilic fungus Thermomyces lanuginosus" World J.Microbial & Biotechnol 16,151-153 (2000). 10. Rajeshwari Marikkannu and P. Palanivelu UlTRaSCAN - an algorithm for prediction of pattern (s) in untranslated regions of eukaryotic mRNAs. Indian J. Biotechnol. 4, 21-38 (2005) 11. P.Palanivelu (2006) Polygalacturonases: Active site analyses and Mechanism of action (Revised and submitted to Indian J.Biotechol.) 12. P. Palanivelu (2006) ClustalW analysis of protein sequences and phase shift analysis of conserved motifs (Revised and submitted to Indian J.Biotechnol). BOOKS & MANUALS: "Laboratory Manual for Analytical Biochemistry and Separation Techniques" 1.Analytical Biochemistry and Separation Techniques" 2.Microbial and Enzyme Biotechnology" Top

Projects Amylase, invertase, pectinase, proteases from the thermolphilic fungus, Thermomyces lanuginosus. Development of transgenic plants agaist fungal pathogens.

Research  Understanding the survival and growth of a small number of organisms at extremes of temperatures, pressures, pHs and salt is a fascinating area of research. It is interesting to know how these organisms grow and multiply at extremes of environmental conditions where others can not even survive for few minutes. What are the special mechanisms or features they have as compared to a multitude of organisms, which could grow and multiply only at normal environmental conditions?.  Our area of research focuses mainly on one of these extremophilic organisms viz., the thermophilic organisms. These thermophilic organisms grow at temperatures at which proteins, enzymes, nucleic acids and the biosynthetic machineries of any organism get irreversibly inactivated. A great deal of work is done, especially on the thermophilic prokaryotic organisms. But little information is available on thermophilic eukaryotes.  Our group has been primarily working for about last 20 years on a thermophilic fungus, Thermomyces lanuginosus, which grows optimally at 50oC (The highest temperature at which any eukaryotic organism could optimally grow). We have been analysing some of the enzymes, viz., invertases, proteases , amylases and pectinases from this fungus. We found that these thermophilic enzymes are more hydrophobic than the mesophilic enzymes. Therefore, it appears that higher hydrophobic nature of these enzymes is an important factor which accounts for their thermostability at high temperatures.Similar finding was reported for a thermophilic DNA polymerase (Taq) polymerase used in PCR), where the organism incorporated more number of hydrophobic amino acids in its enzyme structure than the mesophilic enzymes, accounting for its thermostability. Further work is in progress to analyse other enzymes, proteins, membrane structure at the molecular level to understand the mechanism of growth of thermophilic organisms and their possible applications in food industry and agriculture. Top