Molecular Biophysics Unit (MBU)

Role of Second (p)ppGpp Synthetase MS_RHII-RSD in Mycobacterium smegmatis

Petchiappan, Anushya

Adaptation to a rapidly fluctuating environment is the key to the survival of an organism. Bacteria sense and respond to stress by an overall reprogramming of the cellular processes to shut down the energy-consuming processes ...

Role of RNA Polymerase ω Subunit in Metabolism and Stress Response

Bhardwaj, Neerupma

RNA polymerase (RNAP) is the key enzyme in transcription and it is a multi-subunit enzyme made up of alpha, beta, beta prime and omega subunit in the stoichiometry of α2ββω. Except for the smallest subunit ω (rpoZ), all ...

Structural Characterization of Biological Macromolecules by Random Conical Tilt Pair Experiments

Safdari, Haaris Ahsan

Structural biology deals with determining the structure of biological macromolecules especially proteins, DNA, RNA. The conformational changes in the structure of a macromolecule helps to decipher its function. This ...

Structural and Biochemical Studies on Mycobacterial Uracil- DNA N-glycosylase and Mut T1

Mohammed Arif, Sheikh

Maintenance of the genomic integrity of the cell is crucial for the survival and successful propagation of an organism. However, this integrity is under continuous threat from DNA-damaging agents. In addition, errors in ...

Protein Structure and Mutant Phenotype Prediction from Analysis of Mutant Libraries by Deep Sequencing

Khare, Shruti

Proteins play a central role in all the biological processes. The immense diversity in protein structures and functions despite similar underlying composition is intriguing. The work presented in this thesis aims to provide ...

Exploration of the Recombination Repair Pathway in Mycobacteria : Identification and Characterization of New Proteins

Singh, Amandeep

Genomic integrity is a fundamental requisite for survival and proliferation of all organisms. The genetic material is continuously threatened by a multitude of extrinsic and intrinsic factors. Consequently, the presence ...

Structural Studies on Non-toxic Homologues of type II Ribosome Inactivating Proteins (RIPs)

Chandran, Thyageshwar

This thesis is concerned with structural and related studies on two non-toxic homologues of type II RIPs. Type II RIPs, which are more toxic than type I, contain an additional lectin chain (B-chain) covalently linked to ...

Structural and Functional Characterisation of Small Heat Shock Protiens from Mycobacterium Marinum M

Bhandari, Spraha

Small Heat Shock Proteins (sHSP) are ATP-independent molecular chaperones that exhibit diversity in structure, function and mode of action. They are present ubiquitously in all kingdoms of life. They function mainly by ...

Pranlukast as an Allosteric Inhibitor of M.Tuberculosis Ornithine Acetyltransferase : Implication Towards Novel Combinatorial Therapy

Mishra, Archita

Tuberculosis (TB) is a deadly disease responsible for the death of approximately 1.5 million people each year, with the highest being from developing nations. Tuberculosis affects mostly the lungs, and other parts of the ...

Biophysical Studies on Mycobacterium Tuberculosis σ Factor – Regulatory Protein Complexes

Jamithireddy, Anil Kumar

Adaptation to external environmental conditions is essential for the survival of a bacterial cell. Bacteria have thus evolved multiple mechanisms to sense environmental stimuli and to couple this information into an ...

Effects of Cyclic Permutation, Glycan Removal and Aspartate Mutagenesis on Conformation of HIV-1 Envelope

Das, Raksha

It has been decades since Human Immunodeficiency Virus-1 (HIV-1) was discovered. The virus has created havoc worldwide. According to the UNAIDS 2014 Gap report, 35million people worldwide are infected with HIV-1 and yet ...

G-Protein Coupled Estrogen Receptor (hGPER)- Mediated Action of 17β-Estradiol on hTREK-1 Potassium Channel

Choudhury, Nasreen

TREK-1 is a two-pore domain potassium channel that contributes to maintenance of the resting membrane potential of a cell. TREK-1 is involved in several physiological and pathophysiological conditions like nociception, ...

Theta-band Spectral Selectivity and Gamma-range Coincidence Detection in Spike Initiation Dynamics of Hippocampal Pyramidal Neurons

Das, Anindita

In the pursuit to understand information processing in the brain, a general question that is often posed is: What is the neuron encoding? This is addressed by assessing feature selectivity in sensory neurons, which informs ...

(p)ppGpp and c-di-GMP : A Tale of Two Second Messengers in Mycobacterium smegmatis

Gupta, Kuldeepkumar Ramnaresh

Nucleotide based second messengers are known to regulate wide variety of processes in all domains of life. Two such bacterial second messengers are (p)ppGpp (guanosine tetra- or pentaphosphate) and c-di-GMP (cyclic dimeric ...

HIV-1 Immunogen Design : Envelope Protein Minimization, Stabilization and Glycan Removal

Rathore, Ujjwal

Effective vaccines exist for a number of viral diseases. However, despite much effort, there is no successful vaccine against the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV-1). The envelope glycoprotein (Env) of HIV-1 gp120, the ...

Rational Elicitation of Cold Sensitive Phenotypes

Chetana Baliga, B

Conditional gene expression and conditional mutants provide a means to modulate the expression of specific genes and to control the activity of their protein products in vivo, so as to be able to study their effects on the ...

Plasticity of Intrinsic Excitability in Fast Spiking Interneurons of the Dentate Gyrus & Its Implications for Neuronal Network Dynamics

Dasgupta, Dabanjan

Inhibitory GABAergic neurons, although forming a minor proportion of the neuronal population in the central nervous system, have been reported to be crucial for different physiological states of the brain. Among the vast ...