Research

Vitamin D deficiency is a major healthcare problem in India, where a large fraction of the population exhibits severe deficiency. On the other hand, very high levels of vitamin D also lead to life-threatening complications, including hypercalcemia. Vitamin D is required for several essential physiological functions, such as calcium absorption, inflammation, and insulin secretion. Severe deficiency in vitamin D is associated with pathologies of almost all organ systems, including bone, skeletal muscle, kidneys, and pancreas. These organs play essential roles in metabolic homeostasis. Developing a comprehensive model on the role of vitamin D on metabolic homeostasis is essential to address long-term metabolic dysfunctions induced by vitamin D deficiency.

One of the important aspects of vitamin D that is not well understood is the differential role of vitamin D under different dietary regimens. We explore the molecular mechanisms that define such micronutrient-macronutrient interactions.

Our lab is focused on:

1. The role of vitamin D in the whole body metabolic homeostasis.

2. Elucidating the role of vitamin D in maintaining the cross talk between energy metabolism and nutrients.

3. Interaction between vitamin D and other micronutrients and macronutrients in maintaining the calcium homeostasis.

Though mature adaptive immune cells are in a quiescent state with minimal metabolic activity. Activation of these cells with specific antigens leads to dramatic changes in the gene expression and metabolism of these cells, which finally enables the organism to mount a proper immune response. We have shown that the energy and protein metabolism of resting B and T cells vary significantly, with implications in their post-activation functions: B cell protein synthesis poises these cells for immediate antigen processing and presentation. The crosstalk between gene expression and the metabolism of resting as well as activated lymphocytes are not well understood.

We are currently addressing the following questions:

1. How the initial differences in the protein homeostasis and energy metabolism of B and T cells are established, and what are the functional consequences of these differences?

2. How the metabolic changes in the activated lymphocytes cells modulate gene expression in these cells. We are focusing on the mitochondrial translation and an important regulator of lymphocyte activation and differentiation.

Functional Genomics

To understand the systemic metabolism under chronic conditions, it is vital to establish the changes in gene expression different organ systems. We have developed extensive bioinformatics skill sets to analyse various types of functional genomics data including RNAseq, Riboseq, ATACseq, single cell RNAseq, and single cell ATACseq. We collaborate extensively with other laboratories who are interested in out bioinformatics tools.