Sunil S. Thorat: Profile

Research Theme Photo:

DATABASE AND DOCUMENTATION
•    Development of digital database on medicinal plants of North East India – with special reference to Manipur, Sikkim, Me
•    Comprehensive documentation on Antiviral plants of North East India
•    Digital Database development on Orchids of North East India
•    Geo-reference database on Edible Insect resources of North Eastern Region of India.
•    Documentation of Insecticidal Plants of North East India
•    Documentation of the Microbial Resources of North East India
•    Preparation of documentary on Traditional Foods of North East India.

Documentation of bioresources of North East Region and studies using bioinformatics approaches
    1.    Rhododendron of Sikkim Himalayas (45 records)

Screenshot of inhouse database of Rhododendrons of Sikkim Himalaya

    2.    Tradable Bioresources (Plant) of Sikkim (survey & analysis)
    3.    Ethno pharmacological plants of Sikkim Himalayas (122 records)
    4.    Ethno Veterinary Plants of Sikkim Himalayas (85 records)
    5.    AntiTBPdb: A database of Anti-Tuberculosis phytochemicals from Sikkim Himalayan plants (16 plant species, 64 phytochemical records)

Screenshot of AntiTBP Database of Sikkim Himalaya

In-house Database on Ethno-veterinary Plants of Sikkim Himalaya

6. Verticals involved
Phytopharmaceutical Mission, Ethnobotany, Ethnopharmacology & Drug Discovery for documentation and bioinformatics research.

7. Research Area/Research Expertise
Bioresources Database Development, Biodiversity Informatics studies, Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) Data analysis. Molecular Dynamics and Phylogenetic Analysis.

8. Research Summary

Software/Applications Developed: Simple Sequence Repeats (SSR) software developed to find out the combination of Di, Tri, Tetra, Penta and Hexanucleotide repeatsfrom the given sequence as a result along with tabular and graphical descriptions.

Re-Digester– Restriction Digestion Software is developed to locate, fragment and calculate the size of agiven sequences to find out the number of fragments, its location sites and sizes.

Bioinformatics: In silico phytochemical drug-likelihood analysis of Swertia chirayita was done for molecular mechanism of action of these plant derived molecular entities (PDME)-amarogentin for its inhibitory action on human cyclooxygenases-2 (COX-2). A novel approach was made to find the selectivity of the ligand for the induced isoform of cyclooxygenases (COX), it was found that; amarogentin is not only selective in its activity butits activity is comparable to that of existing FDA approved leads for inhibiting the COX-2.Intra-specific genetic diversity, phytochemical analysis and antioxidant activities of a potential Himalayan Swertia (Swertia bimaculata Hook. F. & Thomas.) was performed with the Plant Biotechnology Lab.

PUBLICATIONS:

Book Chapters:

1.    Somkuwar B.G, Thorat S.S, Subharani S, Abem N and Hore D.K. (2011). Status and Conservation of Bio-Diversity in North East India, in M.D. Choudhury, G.D. Sharma, S. Choudhury and A.D. Talukdar (Eds.), Biodiversity of Bamboo: Aspect and Prospect in North-East India. Swastik Pub, pp.444.

2.    S. Subharani, S. S. Thorat, N. Abem, L. Amit Kumar and T. K. Singh. (2010). A database on parasitoid of insect pests of crops in Manipur, India. The Journal of Plant Protection Sciences. 2(2). p.10-16.
 
3.    Sanjeet Kumar, P. Devanda Singh, Rajndra K. Labala, L. Amitkumar Singh and Sunil S. Thorat. (2019). Medicinal Plant Diversity in Urban Areas. J.K. Patra et al. (eds.), Ethnopharmacology and Biodiversity of Medicinal Plants. Taylor & Francis Group. pp.106-116.

4.    Sanjeet Kumar, Sunil S. Thorat, Rajendra K. Labala and Jayanta Kumar Patra. (2017). Insectivorous Plants of India: Sources of Bioactive Compounds to Fight Against Antimicrobial Resistance. J.K. Patra et al. (eds.), Microbial Biotechnology, Springer Nature. pp. 305-318. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-7140-9_14.

5.    Jayashankar Das, Sandhya Thapa, Sunil S. Thorat. (2015). Indian Valerian: A high valued medicinal crop with immense therapeutic potential. Ed. A. Barua. Medicinal and Aromatic Plants: Exploration and Utilization. pp.104-114.

6.    Sunil S. Thorat, Jayashankar Das, Jitendra Shukla, Shantanu Shukla. (2015). Swertia chirayita: Revisiting the potential bioresource and therapeutic applications. Ed. A. Barua. Medicinal and Aromatic Plants: Exploration and Utilization. pp.125-143.

Journals:

1.    Shukla S, Bafna K, Sundar D, Thorat SS (2014) The Bitter Barricading of Prostaglandin Biosynthesis Pathway: Understanding the Molecular Mechanism of Selective Cyclooxygenase-2 Inhibition by Amarogentin, a Secoiridoid Glycoside from Swertia chirayita. PLoS ONE 9(3): e90637. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0090637

2.     Jayashankar Das, Sandhya Thapa, Deepti Pradhan, Sunil S. Thorat, Narayan C. Talukdar. (2013). Intra-specific genetic diversity, phytochemical analysis and antioxidant activities of a potential Himalayan Swertia (Swertia bimaculata Hook. F. & Thomas.). Indust. Crops Prod. 49: 341-347.

3.    Sunil S. Thorat and Prashant V. Thakare. (2013). Analysis of Staphylococcus using comparative genomics. International Journal of Scientific and Engineering Research. 4(12):1775-1779.

4.    Thorat Sunil and Thakare Prashant. (2012). Comparison of simple sequence repeats in Staphylococcus strains using in-silico approach. Bioinformation. 8(24). p. 1182-86.

5.    Shreth, C. N., William S. J and Thorat, S. S. (2012). In-silico constructon of phylogenetic tree to establish the relationship amongst family Zingiberaceae found in Manipur, North-east India. International Journal of Novel Trends in Pharmaceutical Sciences. 2(5):174-77

6.    Rajiv Das Kangabam, S. S. Thorat and Medhabati Kangabam, (2012). Natural resources conservation at grass root level - A study among the selected school children of Manipur (India) towards biodiversity conservation and its sustainable conservation. NeBio; 3(3): ISSN 0976-3597.

7.    Sanjeet Kumar, Sunil S. Thorat, Gopinath Mondal, P. Devanda Singh, Rajendra K. Labala, L. Amitkumar Singh, Bharat G. Somkuwar and Biseshwori Thongam. (2019). Morphological characterization and ecology of Utricularia aurea Lour. Adv Plants Agric Res. 9(1), pp.61?63. DOI: 10.15406/apar.2019.09.00412.

8.    S. S. Thorat and Sanjeet Kumar. (2018). Aeschynomene manipurensis : a New species from the Indo-Burma biodiversity hotspots. Species, Vol. 19, pp. 23-25.

9.    Bharat Somkuwar,  L. Amitkumar Singh and Sunil. S. Thorat (2018). Record shot of Black Eagle Ictinaetus malaiensis (Temminck, 1822) at Kamjong, Indo-Burma region. Journal of Biodiversity and Conservation. ISSN: 2457-0761. 1(2), pp. 57-59.

10.    Sanjeet Kumar, P.D. Singh, H. Sunitibala Devi, Biseshwori Thongam, Bharat G. Somkuwar and Sunil S. Thorat. (2018). Cymbidium dayanum and Cymbidium sinense (Orchidaceae) Two new additions to the ground flora of Manipur. Jardin Botanique de Guyane - Richardiana. Vol-2, pp.82-87.

11.    Sanjeet Kumar and Sunil S. Thorat. (2018). Addition of host plant of an epiphytic orchid species (Vanda testacea (Lindl.) Rchb.f.) from Indo Burma Biodiversity hotspot, India Journal of Biodiversity and Conservation. ISSN: 2457-0761. 2(1), pp. 108-110.

12.    Th. Surbala Devi, P.D. Singh, B. G. Somkuwar, S. S. Thorat and S. Kumar. (2018).  Oberonia pachyrhachis (Orchidaceae): a new addition to the flora of Manipur, India. Jardin Botanique de Guyane - Richardiana. Vol-2, pp.1-7.

13.    Sunil. S. Thorat, Padma Mahanti and S. Kumar. (2018). Food habit of Oriental White Eye Zosterops palpebrosus  (Temminck, 1824) at urban areas of Imphal, Manipur. Letter to the Editor - Journal of Biodiversity and Conservation. ISSN: 2457-0761. 2(1), pp. 111-113.

14.    Padma Mahanti, Sunil S. Thorat, Sanjeet Kumar. (2017). Phenology and key characters for the restoration of Hypericum gaitii Haines: a threatened plant species of Similipal Biosphere Reserve, Odisha, India. Journal of Biodiversity and Conservation. ISSN: 2457-0761. 1(2), pp. 34-38.

15.    Zeeshan Ahmad Khan, Rajendra Kumar Labala, Gopinath Mondal, Haobijam Sanjita Devi, Chongtham Rajiv, Thangal Yumnamcha, Sijagurumayum Dharmajyoti Devi, Rupjyoti Bharali, Sunil S Thorat and Asamanja Chattoraj. (2016). The daily expression profile of Neuropeptides (gnih, gnrh3, kiss1 and kiss2): A study of possible interaction in the brain of Zebrafish (Danio rerio). (2016). Journal of Endocrinology and Reproduction, Vol 20(1),pp.  129-138,  DOI: 10.18311/jer/2016/15662

Reviews/proceeding

1.    Sunil S. Thorat (2012) Comparison of simple sequence repeats in Staphylococcus strains using in-silico approach poster presented at ‘National Seminar on Intelligent Computing in Biological Sciences (ICIBS 2012)’ held in Padmashree Dr. D. Y. Patil University, Navi Mumbai during March 19-20, 2012.

2.    Sunil S. Thorat (2012) Documentation, Conservation, and networking of Orchid bioresources of North-east India presented at Model Training Course on ‘Conservation of Orchids’ held in National Research Centre for Orchids, Pakyong, Sikkim during September 19-26, 2012.

3.    Sunil S. Thorat, Jitendra K. Shukla, Pardeep K. Bhardwaj, Laishram Shantikumar Singh and Jayashankar Das (2012) presented in souvenir on Bridging research to extension: Strategies and Policies – Role of RCIBSD at ICAR Research Complex for NEH Region, Tadong, Sikkim during October 11-12, 2012
 
4.    Sunil S. Thorat (2011) Ethnobotanical database of Family Zingiberaceae found in Manipur poster presented at National Seminar on ‘Biodiversity Conservation and Climate change (BCCC-11)’ held at IMMT CSIR, Bhubaneswar, Orissa during December 2-4, 2011.

5.    Sunil S. Thorat, Oral presentation on “Tradable flora of Sikkim” on 2nd National Bioresources and Sustainable Development Summit - 2015 organized by Department of Botany, NEHU, Shillong, Meghalaya.

Presentations in Seminars/Conferences:

1.    Sunil Thorat and Prashant Thakare. 2014. Diversity studies of Staphylococcus strains using comparative genomics approach. International Symposium on Genetic Analysis Translational and Developmental. Deptt. of Zoology, University of Burdwan, West Bengal.

2.    Oral presentation on “Anti-TBPdb: A database of Anti-Tuberculosis phytochemicals from Sikkim Himalayan plants” on 1st National Bioresources and Sustainable Development Summit-2015 organized by Institute of Bioresources and Sustainable Development, Imphal, Manipur.

3.    Sunil S. Thorat and Madhusmita Mahapatra. 2015. Poster presentation on “Rhododendron Database of Sikkim Himalayas”. 1st National Bioresources and Sustainable Development Summit-2015. Institute of Bioresources and Sustainable Development, Imphal, Manipur.

4.    Sunil S. Thorat and Madhusmita Mahapatra. 2015. Poster presentation on “Anticancerous Phytochemical Database of Sikkim (India) - a computational approach for understanding cancer”. Indo-Japan symposium on “Advances in biomedicine and bioinformatics”, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science And Technology, Japan.

Invited for Lectures/Talks/Workshops:

1.    Sunil S. Thorat. 2014. “Scope of IBSD in selecting economically valuable bio-resources for research”. Sikkim Biodiversity Board and National Biodiversity Authority for the UNEP-GEF-MoEF-ABS Project at Forest Department, Government of Sikkim.

2.    Sunil S. Thorat. 2014. ‘Three days training programme on Database Designing for Bioinformatics’ at Bioinformatics Centre, Nagaland University, Lumani, Nagaland sponsored by DBT, Govt. of India.

Training conducted:
1.    Organized three days field training during  February 2013 on ‘Biodiversity Assessment’ under DBT-DISC project at the Regional Centre of Institute of Bioresources and Sustainable Development, Sikkim.

A.  Extramural Projects as Coordinator:

Sl No.	Title of Project	Funding Agency	Date of completion
1.	Distributed Information Sub Centre (DISC)	DBT, GoI	31-03-2020
2.	Regional Resource Agency for establishment of DNA Clubs	DBT, GoI	30-09-2010
3.	Orchid bioresources of the North-east India – Conservation, database development and information networking	DBT, GoI	31-03-2019

 

Major facilities created:

Established Regional Centre of IBSD (RCIBSD) at Sikkim as OSD during 2010-2017:

Facilities created at Regional Centre of IBSD (RCIBSD), Sikkim:-

Three laboratories namely Plant Bioresources, Microbial Resources and Bioinformatics & Documentation at Tadong, Gangtok.

Created Plant Nursery for keeping collected plants and other field works at Tadong, Gangtok.

Created Green house, Shade house & field laboratory at Marchak, Sikkim.

Built Tarpaulin based water harvesting tank for watering field plants.

Administrative Work: Looked after the day to day institutional administrative & accountancy activities as Officer on Special Duty which includes official communications with the headquarter at Imphal and interactions with State and National Institutes in Sikkim for institutional activities including meetings and official procedures.