Scientist Profile

Plant Biotechnology, Lipid Biochemistry, Genome editing

• Assistant Professor, Gujarat Biotechnology University, Gandhinagar, Gujarat (June 2023 - February 2024)
• Associate Fellow, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), New Delhi (September 2022 - June 2023)
• Rothamsted International Fellow, Rothamsted Research, UK (August 2021 - May 2022)
• DST-INSPIRE Faculty, National Agri-Food Biotechnology Institute (NABI), January 2018 - September 2022)
• Postdoctoral Fellow, Iowa State University, IA, USA (June 2015 - Nov 2017)
• PhD, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur (2010 - 2015)

• Genetic improvement of rice bran oil stability using genome editing:

India is the world's largest importer of vegetable oil, meeting 55-60% of its demand through imports. Indians mainly cook with palm, soybean and sunflower oils. The country imports 90% of its palm oil needs from Indonesia and Malaysia. As a result, the country must now become not only self-reliant but also self-sufficient to the greatest extent possible through the 'Atmanirbhar Bharat' initiative. India is one of the world's largest rice and rice bran oil (RBO) producers. RBO is extracted from bran, a by-product of rice milling that has traditionally been used for cattle and poultry feed. It is clear that RBO accounts for a very small portion of rice production, and India, as one of the largest rice producers, has enormous potential to increase RBO production and can reduce the edible oil imports.
RBO is typically high in essential fatty acids and contains gamma-oryzanol (antioxidant) with beneficial health effects. It has relatively high smoke point which makes it suitable for cooking and deep frying when compared with other regular edible oils. Despite this, rice bran is underexploited as a source of human nutrition and revenue. A major problem associated with bran utilization is its instability. It has a lower shelf-life due to the hydrolytic rancidity of stored oil or triacylglycerol. 
There has been no report to date that specifically target rice lipases to improve bran lipid stability. We will explore this knowledge gap by targeting lipases and lipoxygenases using genome editing that are highly active during the onset of lipid mobilization to overcome the issue of rancidity.

• Designing and assessing Indian oil seed mustard with a very high oleate content for healthy food and sustainable industrial applications using targeted genome editing 

My research also focuses on improving vegetable oil quality. Oils high in oleic acid are desirable for their cooking and health benefits. The fatty acid desaturase (FAD2) enzyme, which converts oleic acid (18:1) to linoleic acid (18:2), appears to be a critical determinant of oleic acid content and thus a prime target for the creation of high oleic germplasms via FAD2 gene mutations or suppression. Each approach has inherent limitations on plant performance. As a result, we aim to increase the 18:1 content in Indian oil seed mustard using a novel CRISPR-Cas9-based strategy that involves a stable reduction of FAD2 expression in seeds without compromising plant health.
 

1. Bhunia RK, Menard G and Eastmond P (2022). A native promoter–gene fusion created by CRISPR/Cas9-mediated genomic deletion offers a transgene-free method to drive oil accumulation in leaves. FEBS letters, 596: 1865-1870. https://doi.org/10.1002/1873-3468.14365

2. Verma L, Bhadouria J, Bhunia RK, Singh S, Panchal P, Bhatia C, Eastmond P, and Giri J (2022). Monogalactosyl diacylglycerol synthase 3 affects phosphate utilization and acquisition in rice. Journal of Experimental Botany, 73:5033-5051. https://doi.org/10.1093/jxb/erac192

3. Menard GN, Langdon M, Bhunia RK, Shankhapal AR, Noleto-Dias C, Lomax C, Ward JL, Kurup S, and Eastmond PJ. (2022) Diverting phenylpropanoid pathway flux from sinapine to produce industrially useful 4-vinyl derivatives of hydroxycinnamic acids in Brassicaceous oilseeds. Metabolic Engineering, 70: 196-205. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ymben.2022.01.016.

4. Bhunia RK, Sinha K, Chawla K, Randhawa V and Sharma TR. (2020) Functional characterization of two type-1 diacylglycerol acyltransferase (DGAT1) genes from rice (Oryza sativa) embryo restoring the triacylglycerol accumulation in yeast. Plant Molecular Biology. 105:247–262. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11103-020-01085-w

5. Bhunia RK, Showman L, Jose A and Nikolau B. (2018) Combined use of cutinase and high resolution mass-spectrometry to query the molecular structure of cutin. Plant Methods, 14:117. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13007-018-0384-6.

View All Publication

• 2021 Best Publication Award (Agri-Biotechnology), NABI, India.
• 2021 Rothamsted International Fellowship, Rothamsted Research, UK.
• 2018 DST-INSPIRE Faculty, DST, India.
• 2013 BioAsia Innovation Award, BioAsia, Hyderabad, India.
• 2013 Best Poster Presentation, National Symposium on Plant Tissue Culture and Biotechnology for Food and Nutritional Security, CFTRI, Mysore, India.