Molecular Genetics Laboratory (Officer In-charge: Dr Biju Viswanath)

The Molecular Genetics laboratory has been involved in several research projects in neuropsychiatric disorders including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, autism, dementia, OCD and addiction. These studies have utilised different genetic methods such as case association studies, linkage studies and next generation sequencing methods to understand the biology of these illnesses. As part of this, clinical endophenotypes such as treatment response, disease severity and co morbidities have been evaluated with a genetic perspective.  ‘Disease in a dish’ models have been initiated to study cellular endophenotypes in patient derived lines. Epigenetic studies are ongoing to understand the role of DNA methylation in alcohol addiction, stress and psychiatric illness. Another interest of the lab is to study the genetic epidemiology of triplet repeat disorders such as Huntington’s Disease as well as spinocerebellar ataxias such as SCA1, 2 &3.

For more details Visit our Website

https://www.mglnimhans.org/

Workshops & Symposia conducted by the lab:

https://www.cbmnimhans.org/in-the-news

Recent Publications

• A rare case of Niemann Pick Disease with a novel variant in the NPC2 gene presenting with neuropsychiatric manifestations in middle age. Agarwal, A.; Praveen, A. P.; Singhai, K.; Ashitha, S.; Purushottam, M.; Jain, S.; and Moirangthem, S. Asian Journal of Psychiatry, 97: 104089. July 2024.
• Deep Intronic FGF14 GAA Repeat Expansion in Late-Onset Cerebellar Ataxia. Pellerin, D.; Danzi, M. C.; Wilke, C.; Renaud, M.; Fazal, S.; Dicaire, M.; Scriba, C. K.; Ashton, C.; Yanick, C.; Beijer, D.; Rebelo, A.; Rocca, C.; Jaunmuktane, Z.; Sonnen, J. A.; Lariviere, R.; Genis, D.; Molina Porcel, L.; Choquet, K.; Sakalla, R.; Provost, S.; Robertson, R.; Allard-Chamard, X.; Tetreault, M.; Reiling, S. J.; Nagy, S.; Nishadham, V.; Purushottam, M.; Vengalil, S.; Bardhan, M.; Nalini, A.; Chen, Z.; Mathieu, J.; Massie, R.; Chalk, C. H.; Lafontaine, A.; Evoy, F.; Rioux, M.; Ragoussis, J.; Boycott, K. M.; Dube, M.; Duquette, A.; Houlden, H.; Ravenscroft, G.; Laing, N. G.; Lamont, P. J.; Saporta, M. A.; Schule, R.; Schols, L.; La Piana, R.; Synofzik, M.; Zuchner, S.; and Brais, B. The New England journal of medicine, 388(2): 128–141. January 2023. Place: United States
• Metagenomic data reveals microbiome characteristics of culture-negative brain abscess samples. John, D. V.; and Purushottam, M. Data in brief, 46: 108893. February 2023. Place: Netherlands
• Growth trajectories for executive and social cognitive abilities in an Indian population sample: Impact of demographic and psychosocial determinants. Sharma, E.; Ravi, G. S.; Kumar, K.; Thennarasu, K.; Heron, J.; Hickman, M.; Vaidya, N.; Holla, B.; Rangaswamy, M.; Mehta, U. M.; Krishna, M.; Chakrabarti, A.; Basu, D.; Nanjayya, S. B.; Singh, R. L.; Lourembam, R.; Kumaran, K.; Kuriyan, R.; Kurpad, S. S.; Kartik, K.; Kalyanram, K.; Desrivieres, S.; Barker, G.; Orfanos, D. P.; Toledano, M.; Purushottam, M.; Bharath, R. D.; Murthy, P.; Jain, S.; Schumann, G.; and Benegal, V. Asian journal of psychiatry, 82: 103475. April 2023. Place: Netherlands
• Delusions, Hallucinations, and Cognitive Decline in Middle Age: A Case of Dementia, GIGYF2 Gene Mutation, and 22q11 Duplication. Nadella, R. K.; Pulaparambil, V.; Vemula, A.; P, S. L.; Saini, J.; Nagaraj, C.; Purushottam, M.; Viswanath, B.; Sullivan, P. F.; and Jain, S. Indian journal of psychological medicine, 45(3): 317–319. May 2023. Place: United States
• Risk clustering and psychopathology from a multi-center cohort of Indian children, adolescents, and young adults. Basu, D.; Ghosh, A.; Naskar, C.; Balachander, S.; Fernandes, G.; Vaidya, N.; Kumaran, K.; Krishna, M.; Barker, G. J.; Sharma, E.; Murthy, P.; Holla, B.; Jain, S.; Orfanos, D. P.; Kalyanram, K.; Purushottam, M.; Bharath, R. D.; Varghese, M.; Thennarasu, K.; Chakrabarti, A.; Singh, R. L.; Singh, R. L.; Nanjayya, S. B.; Ahuja, C. K.; Kartik, K.; Krishnaveni, G.; Kuriyan, R.; Kurpad, S. S.; Desrivieres, S.; Iyengar, U.; Zhang, Y.; Hickman, M.; Spiers, A.; Toledano, M.; Schumann, G.; and Benegal, V. Development and psychopathology, 35(2): 800–808. May 2023. Place: United States
• Ahmed P H, V V, More RP, Viswanath B, Jain S, Rao MS, Mukherjee O; ADBS Consortium.. INDEX-db: The Indian Exome Reference Database (Phase I). J Comput Biol. 2019 Mar;26(3):225-234. doi: 10.1089/cmb.2018.0199. Epub 2019 Jan 7. PubMed PMID: 30615482.
• Ashok A, Naaz S, Kota LN, Sen S, Purushottam M, Faruq M, Kumari R, Yadav V, Kannan R, Jain S, Panicker MM, Viswanath B. Does retinoic acid reverse cell cycle dysregulation in Alzheimer’s disease lymphocytes? Asian J Psychiatr. 2019 Jan;39:174-177. doi: 10.1016/j.ajp.2018.08.010. Epub 2018 Aug 16. PubMed PMID: 30139662.
• Ganesh S, Ahmed P H, Nadella RK, More RP, Seshadri M, Viswanath B, Rao M, Jain S; ADBS Consortium., Mukherjee O. Exome sequencing in families with severe mental illness identifies novel and rare variants in genes implicated in Mendelian neuropsychiatric syndromes. Psychiatry Clin Neurosci. 2019 Jan;73(1):11-19. doi: 10.1111/pcn.12788. Epub 2018 Dec 12. PubMed PMID: 30367527.
• Najar AH, Sneha KM, Ashok A, Babu S, Subramaniam AG, Kannan R, Viswanath B, Purushottam M, Varghese M, Parvez S, Panicker MM, Mukherjee O, Jain S. Derivation of iPSC lines from two patients with familial Alzheimer’s disease from India. Stem Cell Res. 2019 Jan;34:101370. doi: 10.1016/j.scr.2018.101370. Epub 2018 Dec 19. PubMed PMID: 30605839.