Bioinformatics Laboratory(Officer In Charge: Dr Keshav Prasad, Dr SK Shankar)

Bioinformatics Laboratory(Officer In Charge: Dr Keshav Prasad, Dr SK Shankar)

The Bioinformatics and Proteomics Laboratory at Neurobiology Research Centre is actively involved in genomic, proteomic phospoproteomic and glycoproteomic analysis of various human tissues to understand the cellular biology. The main areas of thrust at this laboratory are study of chronic meningitis like tuberculous meningitis, cryptococcal meningitis, rabies encephalitis. In collaboration Department of Neurovirology, the scientists have studied temporal evolution of mouse brain proteome in response to rabies infection. They demonstrated dysregulation of chemokine and interleukin receptor pathways in addition to large number of protein involved in synaptic vesicle exocytosis and RNA processing. They also evaluated quantitative proteomic of various types commercially available rabies vaccines. In collaboration with Department of Neurochemistry, quantitative proteomics and glycoproteomic analysis of cerebral stroke and ischemic stroke has been carried out. In addition the laboratory is involved in studying the proteomic alterations in cerebral head injury and some of the neuromuscular disorders.

Completed research activities include;The quantitative proteomic analysis of brain tissue samples from cryptococcal meningitis patients co-infected with HIV and toxoplasma encephalitis patients co-infected with HIV to identify molecules involved in host response and identified 260 and 180 differentially expressed proteins, respectively when compared to tissues from uninfected individuals. The researchers have carried out proteomics, proteogenomics and phosphoproteomic studies of Cryptococcus neoformans using high resolution mass spectrometry. We have also mapped proteome of human pituitary glands and identified a total of 2,286 proteins.

Ongoing research activities include; profiling the proteins altered in chronic meningitis using brain tissue samples and CSF samples. In addition, we have performed temporal analysis of rabies virus infected mouse cerebrum and cell lines such as BHK21 and neuro2A. We have also carried out glycoproteomic analysis of serum samples from ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke.

The laboratory has completed 4 major funded projects and currently has 7 ongoing funded projects (including one COE Grant) and 5 non funded projects. More than 15 researchers including PhD scholars, project assistants are currently using the lab facility. The researchers have received awards for the research carried out in the laboratory. Recently, NIMHANS has commissioned the next gen Orbitrap Fusion Mass spectrometer for collaborative work in the lab. Detailed information of the IOB-NIMHANS laboratory is available at; http://ibioinformatics.org/IOB_NIMHANS.php