Annual Report 2016 - 2017 CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology Hyderabad K Guruprasad 48 (Protein Sequence, Structure Analysis and Drug Design) K Thangaraj 50 (Evolutionary and Medical Genetics) Lakshmi Rao Kandukuri 54 (Chromosome Biology and Human Reproductive Genetics) Arvind Kumar 57 (Non-coding RNAs in diverse brain regions in stress response and depression) Lekha Dinesh Kumar 59 (Role of wnt signalling in EMT and development of colon cancer) Satish Kumar 62 (Functional Genomics using Transgenic and Knockout Mice and Molecular Approaches in Animal Breeding) Mukesh Lodha 65 (Mechanism of Epigenetic Inheritance in Plants) M M Idris 67 (Bio-mechanisms of Regeneration and Degeneration) M V Jagannadham 69 (Studies on outer membrane vesicles of bacteria) Rakesh K Mishra 72 (Genome Organization and Epigenetic Regulation) P Chandra Shekar 77 (Early embryonic development in mouse) Veena K Parnaik 79 (Nuclear organization and lamin biology) Anant B Patel 81 (13 C Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Investigations of Neurotransmitter Energetics in Neurological Disorders) R Nagaraj 85 Host-defense Antimicrobial Peptides; Activity and Developing Future Therapeutic Agents ii Palani Murugan Rangasamy 88 (The Regulation of Polyamine Homeostasis and their relevance in Health and Diseases of Eukaryotes) Ch Mohan Rao 90 (Molecular chaperones in health and diseases & Molecular diagnostics, therapeutics and drug delivery) Swasti Raychaudhuri 95 (Proteotoxicity in age-related diseases) Manjula Reddy 98 (Bacterial cell wall synthesis and its regulation) Kumaraswamy Regalla 100 (Non-coding RNAs in patho-physiology of the heart) Rajan Sankaranarayanan 102 (Structural Biology) Yogendra Sharma 106 (Calcium signaling via calcium-binding proteins) Imran Siddiqi 108 (Plant Reproductive Biology) Puran Singh Sijwali 110 (Roles of the ubiquitin proteasome system and autophagy in malaria parasite biology and pathogenesis) Shashi Singh 113 (Adult Stem Cells from Various Sources and Tissue Engineering) Sadanand D Sontakke 115 Reproductive Biotechnologies for Wildlife Conservation) Ramesh V Sonti 117 (Plant-Pathogen Interactions) Ghanshyam Swarup 120 (Molecular mechanisms of neuro-degeneration caused by mutations in optineurin) Raghunand R Tirumalai 123 (Dissecting the Molecular Basis of Mycobacterium tuberculosis Pathogenesis) iii Shrish Tiwari 126 (Sequence analysis of biomolecules) Tushar Vaidya 128 (Molecular analysis of host-pathogen interactions) Karthikeyan Vasudevan 132 (Ecology and conservation of endangered species) Vegesna Radha 136 (Signaling to the cytoskeleton and regulation of cellular functions) Sunil Kumar Verma 139 (Signal Transduction Studies in Human health and Disease and Molecular Biology Applications in Wildlife Conservation) III.1 List of Publications and Patents 141 III.2 PhD Program 153 III.3 Training Programs 154 III.4 Research Facilities 155 III.5 Research Resources 161 III.6 Services 164 III.7 CCMB Innovation Hub 166 IV. Administration and Management 167 V. General Information 171 VI. JONAKI-BRIT/DAE 32P LABELLED 199 BIOMOLECULES LABORATORY iv Foreword Foreword It is a great pleasure to present the states of the country. Another activity Annual Report for the year 2016- is offering wildlife forensic and DNA 2017. The report highlights the diagnostic services. The third such research, education and training activity in this area is popularization of activities of CSIR-CCMB during the apple cultivation in selected regions of past year. Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. There are plans to upscale these CCMB carries out research in diverse activities for more societal benefits. areas of biology that include (i) Cell and Developmental Biology, (ii) India has to take full advantage of its Genetics, Genomics and Epigenetics, unique position of being a nation with (iii) Infectious Diseases, (iv) Plant the largest proportion of young Biology and Crop Technologies, (v) people. Skilled human resource for Structural Biology, (vi) Wildlife the biotechnology industry and Conservation and Ecology. addressing our health issues at a large scale are going to be important. I In addition to these research activities, believe that these are the areas where CCMB is actively involved in the areas CCMB is very well poised to make that have immediate societal impact. significant contributions. CCMB has These include popularization of initiated several training programmes improved rice variety (developed for skill development for industry jointly by CSIR-CCMB and ICAR- needs and to encourage research IIRR) that has now reached into seven interest in medical students. Today’s science will set the agenda for A changing set of technologies, and tomorrow’s socio-economic activities. newly emerging possibilities & It is, therefore, extremely important to challenges keep laboratories such as spread the message of science, its CSIR-CCMB at the centre stage unprecedented possibilities and where we are expected to deliver to awareness on issues in society. the needs and aspirations of the CCMB is committed to this cause: we nation. I have no doubt that CCMB is organize a number of activities under ready to meet this challenge. which the CCMB community interacts with young students and the public from across the country every year through its open day programme, educational tours, visits of police, Rakesh Kumar Mishra forest, judiciary and industry officials. Director I. Charter The Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) is one of the constituent national laboratories of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), New Delhi, the premier multi- disciplinary research organization in the country funded by the Government of India. It was set up formally in April, 1977 The objectives of the Centre are : d) To provide centralized facilities in the a) To conduct research in frontier and multi- country for new and modern techniques disciplinary areas of modern biology and to in the inter-disciplinary areas of biology, seek potential applications of this work. and to ensure that these facilities are so organized, maintained and administered b) To carry out exploratory work in areas of that they can be put to maximal use by biology with a view to aid the development of research workers from other laboratories biochemical and biological technology in the and institutions in the country. country on a sound basis. e) To interact adequately with other institutions c) To train people in the advanced areas of biology to serve the needs of development in doing basic or applied work in areas related to these areas, with special provision for short- the activities of the Centre. term training of staff from other institutions in f) To collect, collate and disseminate techniques for which adequate facilities may information relevant to biological research. not exist elsewhere. 03 Research Programmes Ramesh Kumar Aggarwal Molecular Genetics and Developmental Biology From Left to Right: Purushotham, Lomous Kumar, Harsh Joshi, Ramesh K. Aggarwal, Arcot K. Nagamani, Chhavi Dawar RESEARCH INTERESTS: Selected recent publications • Epigenetics of temperature-dependent sex determination 1. Jegath Janani S, Vasudevan Karthikeyan, Prendini Elizabeth, • DNA Markers: development and applications in crop improvement Dutta Sushil Kumar, and Aggarwal Ramesh K (2017). A new • Barcoding of Anurans of India species of the genus Nasikabatrachus (Anura, • Evolution/phylogeography of endangered species Nasikabatrachi-dae) from the eastern slopes of the Western • Decoding of Indian genomes Ghats, India. Alytes 34(1-4), 1-19. (the paper is covered extensively by National/ international press/-online news groups, including ones like National Geography). 2. Aggarwal RK, Dawar C, Phanindranath R, Mutnuri L and Dayal AM. (2016). Draft genome sequence of a versatile hydrocarbon-degrading bacterium, Rhodococcus pyridinivorans strain KG-16, collected from oil fields in India. Genome Announcement 4(1): e01704-15. 3. Chandramouli SR, Vasudevan K, Harikrishnan S, Dutta SK, Our group has identified several Janani SJ, Sharma R, Das I and Aggarwal RK. (2016). A new genus and species of arboreal toad with phytotelmonous candidate genes having putative role in TSD, larvae, from the Andaman Islands, India (Lissamphibia, Anura, described new species of anurans, developed Bufonidae). ZooKeys 555: 57-90. >2500 species specific genic-/genomic 4. Prakash N S, Jeena Devasia, Ramesh K Aggarwal, and microsatellite markers, constructed the first- Raghuramulu Y (2017) COFFEE. In: Biotechnology of generation framework molecular linkage maps Plantation Crops, Eds: Chowdappa P, Anitha Karun, Rajesh M K, Ramesh S V, Chapter 17, pp 355 - 404, (ISBN: 978-93- of coffee and mulberry, established that the 5124-836-1) Daya Publishing House, New Delhi. Indian wolf populations represent new species, i.e., Canis indica and Canis himalayensis, discovered many new frog species and showed that the olive ridleys in Indian waters are the ancient source population for the olives in other global basins. 07 Our main research interest is to understand the eco- To expedite our efforts to identify the putative devo of temperature-dependent sex determination candidate gene(s) underlying the TSD, we initiated (TSD) using Indian mugger as a model system. We whole/global transcriptome profiling of GAM and are equally interested in application oriented studies brain tissues of male/female embryos using the involving development/utilization of genomic high-throughput NGS approaches. We have now resources useful for crop improvement,