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Autophagy is central to the interplay between bacterial pathogens and their hosts. The gastric pathogen Helicobacter pylori triggers the unfolded proteins response (UPR) through PERK, to activate expression of autophagy genes and trigger autophagy which restricts gastric epithelial cell death. On the other hand, the intracellular pathogen, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, downregulates microRNA, miR-17 to facilitate upregulation of the autophagy inhibitor Mcl-1 and inhibition of autophagy. This facilitates bacterial survival in macrophages

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Proteins of Giardia lamblia, the protozoal parasite that causes giardiasis, being targeted to different cellular locations. The unique subcellular distribution of different fluorescent labeled proteins has been captured by imaging with a confocal microscope. The subcellular locations shown in the figure included vesicles, flagella, nucleus, lateral crest of ventral disk and the marginal plates associated with the anterior flagella.

The objective of Plan Program V is to investigate microbes using various molecular as well as genomic tools. The microbes being investigated include those which cause diseases, such as Mycobacterium tuberculosis, those that can be used to degrade complex environmental pollutants and finally those that are found in various environmental niches such as geothermal vents. A major component of our research is to trace the evolutionary origins of microbes and their genes, particularly those that are associated with novel functions. Using methods that include sequencing of genomes and metagenomes considerable insight into complex metabolic pathways that are environmentally and evolutionary important have been unraveled.

Faculty members associated with this programme:


Sujoy K. Dasgupta (Coordinator)
Pradeep Parrack
Tapan Dutta
Wriddhiman Ghosh
Manikuntala Kundu
Srimonti Sarkar
Subrata Sau
Joyoti Basu
Abhrajyoti Ghosh

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At the cross-roads of microbiology and geochemistry, near the physicochemical limits of the biosphere: our boys exploring the microbial ecology of a hot-spring (located within the Puga geothermal area of Ladakh) which discharges 70°C water from within a large, boratic microbialite named Shivalinga

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(A)Converged catabolic pathways with multiple peripheral dioxygenases in the metabolically robust Sphingobium sp. (B) Molecular information of catabolic operons used to develop bioreporter strains to monitor various health hazard aromatics. (C) RHObase a manually curated interactive database with an integrated cheminformatics tool providing oxygenase-related requisite information to researchers, especially working in the field of environmental microbiology and biocatalysis to attain difficult chemistry of biotechnological importance.