Pathogens and pests always have been and still is a potential threat to agricultural production worldwide. Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) is nutritionally a balanced staple food; therefore, it has potential to minimize the pressure on cereal crops in Pakistan. Viral diseases are major problem in stable crop production, especially in vegetative propagated plants such as potato where diseases are easily transmitted from one clonal generation to the next. Conventional methods of virus control are limited to use of virus-free seed tubers and chemical control of insect vectors. However, development of resistant cultivar is the only effective, economical and environmentally safe method of disease control. The use of RNA silencing has become the tool of choice for gene silencing in many crop species. The key element of this technology is the discovery of double-stranded RNA (dsRNA), diced into small interfering RNAs (siRNA), which is a potent trigger for RNA silencing. By arranging transgenes as inverted repeats encoding self-complementary hairpin RNA (hpRNA), which is diced into siRNA after transcription, it is possible to obtain strong silencing of expression of homologous RNA. Using this technology efficient simultaneous knock-down of multiple genes of three different viruses have been achieved by using a single RNAi construct in potato. In this study, the transgenic resistance in potato was obtained based on the construction of hairpin RNA plant expression cassettes I and II containing the sequences of different genes of three important potato viruses. The cassette I containing the short sequences of Nucleocide Triphosphate binding helicase (NTP) gene of Potato Virus X (PVX), Helper Component Protease (HC-Pro) gene of Potato Virus Y (PVY) and Coat Protein (CP) gene of Potato Leaf Roll Virus (PLRV), while the expression cassette II contains the sequences of CP genes of PVX, PVY and PLRV. The sense and anti-sense fragments of these genes were fused separately to form a chimeric N gene and arranged in an RNAi vector as inverted repeats, under the CaMV 35S promoter, separated by intron. These expression cassettes were transformed separately in potato cv Kuroda and Desiree through Agrobacterium mediated transformation by using Agrobacterium tumefacience strain LBA 4404. Fourteen independent transgenic lines of each cassette were developed and transferred to containment after analysis of T0 transgenic plants by PCR and Southern hybridization for the presence of transgenes. The transgenic expression of these cassettes showed that up to 20 % of the transformed plant lines were resistant and 46 % were tolerant to all three viruses. The analysis of the resistant plants showed accumulation of siRNA as compared to susceptible transgenic and non-transformed control plants. This indicates that the resistance is due to simultaneous RNA silencing of the three target genes in each construct. Overall, the work presented here demonstrates a simple procedure to obtain broad spectrum virus resistance in two commercial potato cultivars Kuroda and Desiree by RNA silencing technology. At present, another independent study is being conducted to multiply and evaluate the field performance of putative transgenic potato lines after obtaining approval of National Biosafety Committee (NBC) of Environment Protection Agency (EPA), Government of Pakistan. In future, studies to improve frequency of developing multiple virus resistant plants could be attempted by extending the transgenes construct with a large number of smaller fragments of target genes. Moreover, it is possible that present strategy can be extended to other plant species to obtain broad spectrum resistance against many other devastating
چودھری محمد علی صاحب ردولوی افسوس ہے کہ ہماری قدیم تہذیب کی یادگاریں ایک ایک کر کے اٹھتی جاتی ہیں اور پرانی محفل اجڑتی جاتی ہے، ان ہی یادگاروں میں ایک چودھری محمد علی صاحب مرحوم ردولوی بھی تھے، وہ امراؤ شرفائے اودھ کی تہذیب کا نمونہ تھے، ان کی شخصیت بڑی دلکش و دلپزیر تھی، بڑے خوش مذاق، زندہ دل، بذلہ سنج حاضر جواب اور علم مجلسی کے بڑے ماہر تھے، ان کی ہر چیز میں خوبی و لطافت اور زبان وقلم دونوں میں بڑے دلکشی تھی، تحریر میں صاحب طرز ادیب اور خوش گفتاری میں ہزار داستان تھے، جس محفل میں بیٹھتے تھے اپنی خوش بیانی سے چھاجاتے تھے، ان کی تحریر میں سادگی کے ساتھ بڑی تازگی اور بے ساختگی تھی، اس طرز میں وہ منفرد تھے، اہل زبان حضرات میں بھی اس طرز میں لکھنے والا کوئی نہ تھا، مگر ان کی تحریر اور گفتگو دونوں میں اودھ کا پرانا بے فکری کا تفریحی مذاق غالب تھا اس لیے تحریر کا دائرہ ادب و افسانے تک محدود تھا، اور اسی میں ان کا طرز تحریر کھلتا بھی تھا سنجیدہ علمی و ادبی مباحث سے ان کو زیادہ دلچسپی نہ تھی، اگر کبھی بھولے سے اس کوچہ میں نکل آتے تھے تو اس میں بھی تفریحی رنگ پیدا ہوجاتا تھا، یہی حال ان کی گفتگو کا تھا، ان کی سنجیدہ گفتگو بھی لطائف و ظرائف سے خالی نہ ہوتی تھی۔ ان کی عمر اسی (۸۰) کے قریب تھی مگر ان کی طبیعت سدا بہار تھی، اسلئے اس زمانہ میں بھی نہ وہ کسی سوسائٹی کے لیے اجنبی ہوئے تھے اور نہ کوئی سوسائٹی ان کے لیے اجنبی تھی، ہر عمر ہر مذاق اور ہر طبقہ کے لوگوں سے ان کے یکساں تعلقات تھے، اور جس مجمع میں بیٹھتے اس میں گھل مل کر...
The paper deals with the different styles of iltifāt found in the Holy Qur’ān and coming out with a general scheme to account for its occurrence in order to enhance the understanding of the subtleties of this feature of Qur’ān ic style. To accomplish this, the research was carried out by way of an analytical study of the instances of iltifāt in the Holy Qur’ān. As a prelude to the discussion of this subject, the research provides the meaning of iltifāt among the Arab rhetoricians and the status of iltifāt as one of the rhetorical tropes. The paper also discussed the significations of iltifāt which have already been mentioned by previous scholars, and since those scholars touched on the significations only briefly, therefore, the research strived to explore further aspects of their interpretations making an effort to highlight new significations of iltifat and an attempt to introduce a new approach in looking at the iltifāt phenomenon, in different Sura’hs of Qur’ān, to demonstrate the application of this new perspective. Finally the research shows that the occurrence of iltifÉt in the Qur’ān follows certain patterns that are related to the intended significations at the various locations where they appear in the Qur’ān.
This study is planned to examine the changing dynamics of Middle Eastern politics and implications to Pakistan. Middle East is one of the consequential regions of the world in term of oil richness, geopolitical situations and holy places. The internal politics of Middle East is rotating around ideological, ethnic and territorial disputes of states. The security situation of the Middle East is becoming complex in nature due to involvement of external forces as well.Another aspect of this research work is to explore the implications of the incidents taking place in the Middle East. Pakistan, in the context of inter-regional implications of Middle Eastern political scenario, is taken in to account as case study.The strategic, economic and political magnetism has brought together major powers around the Middle Eastern region with multiple interests and motivations. In the prevailing security complex of Middle Eastern region these superpowers have not only a significant role but also a crucial strategic posture. Since the time of mandate system superpowers have exert their presence and they have played their role. Especially in the aftermath of Arab Spring, US, Russia and China have great role to play in the consolidation of this region. Power politics between US and Russia and between Iran and Saudi Arabia has generated Middle Eastern in-groups that are composed of Iran and Russia, US and Saudi Arabia. The consequent conflicts of realistic nature generated by above mentioned groups carry out the goals of establishing hegemony on regional and eventually on global level. It seems ass the purpose of this hegemony is to control natural resources of the Middle East along with the containment of their rival groups by all possible ways and means. While in the Middle Eastern region identity is constituted on both ethnic and religious basis which provides ample room for political disorientation. The effects of Middle Eastern conflict are not bound to regional borders. The Middle East based challenge like religious fundamentalism, sectarian aggression also influence Pakistan a lot.The study concluded that, in such grim political scenario consensus building process is suggested to be built on the humanitarian basis rather than on the basis of any political connotation. In order to give this consensus a legitimate semblance, there is dire need to flourish political socialization and a participative political culture to bring about political consensus on humanitarian basis and a workable regional political mechanism. As hypothesized for this research, unless these complex security issues are taken up with the prescribed sagacity, viable peace in the region would be a far cry.