For a complete list of publications: pubmed.
2025:
Sugar-sensing swodkoreceptors and swodkocrine signaling
Anbalagan S. Animal Model Exp Med. 2025. doi: 10.1002/ame2.70007
The big question asked: Is glucokinase a glucose sensor or is it a signal transducer for some other receptor?
Major proposal: Mammalian glucokinase regulatory protein (GCKR/GKRP) is proposed as a fructose-sensing swodkoreceptor that mediate swodkocrine signaling via glucokinase as a signal transducer. Swodkoreceptors will also include the E. coli lac operon regulating protein LacI repressor that senses allolactose!
For readers without a subscription to the journal, a preprint of the manuscript draft is available here.
Popular science article: Sugar of life
2024:
Heme-based oxygen gasoreceptors
Anbalagan S. Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab. 2024. doi: 10.1152/ajpendo.00004.2024
The big question asked: Just like a protein receptor for Nitric oxide, is there a receptor for oxygen?
Major findings: In this manuscript, the term and definition for 'protein gasoreceptor' are proposed for the first time in an English language-based scientific society journal. The previous definition of 'gasocrine signaling' is also updated.
For readers without a subscription to the journal, a preprint of the manuscript draft is available here.
Popular science article: Każda komórka powinna posiadać receptory wykrywające tlen. English translation: here.
Oxygen is an essential gasotransmitter directly sensed via protein gasoreceptors
Anbalagan S. Animal Model Exp Med. 2024. doi: 10.1002/ame2.12400
The big question asked: If diet-derived amino acids are called 'essential amino acids', why environment-derived oxygen is not called an 'essential gasotransmitter'? If the behavior of worms and mice can regulated via oxygen-sensing receptors, how to call oxygen? a pheromone? a gaseous allelochemical?
Major proposal: A revision for the criteria for gasotransmitters is proposed so that oxygen can be considered as an 'essential gasotransmitter'. Oxygen is proposed as a gasocrine signal between oxygen-producing organisms and animals. In this manuscript, the term and definition for 'gasocrinology' is proposed for the first time in an English language-based scientific society journal. Androglobin is also proposed as one of the putative oxygen-sensing receptor.
Popular science article: In Gasocrine We Trust
[Heme-based aquareceptors]/Akwareceptory na bazie hemu
Anbalagan S. Postepy Biochem. 2024. doi: 10.18388/pb.2021_551
The big question asked: Just like a protein receptor for Nitric oxide, is there a receptor for water?
Major proposal: A hypothesis is proposed that putative aquareceptor candidates could be some of the heme-based oxygen-sensing gasoreceptors in which water can bind at oxygen-binding sites. In this manuscript, the term and definition for 'protein aquareceptor' are proposed for the first time in a (biochemical society) journal.
For english-language manuscript, a preprint is available here.
Gas-sensing riboceptors
Anbalagan S. RNA Biology. doi: 10.1080/15476286.2024.2379607
The big question asked: Just like protein gasoreceptor for oxygen and other gases, is there a nucleic-acid-based receptor for gases?
Major proposal: A hypothesis is proposed that putative gas-sensing ribocepter candidates could be some of the G4 heme-based nucleic acid structures with catalytic activity. In this manuscript, the term and definition for 'riboceptor' are proposed for the first time in a scientific journal.
For readers without a subscription to the journal, a preprint of the manuscript draft is available here.
Popular science article: The hand of RNA
Temperature-sensing riboceptors
Anbalagan S. RNA Biology. doi: 10.1080/15476286.2024.2379118
The big question asked: Just like temperature-sensing proteins, are there temperature-sensing nucleic-acid-based receptor?
Major proposal: A hypothesis is proposed that putative temperature-sensing riboceptor candidates could be some of the temperature-sensitive nucleic acid structures with catalytic activity. In this manuscript, the term 'thermocrine signaling' is proposed for the first time to include all temperature-based signaling events triggered via temperature-sensing receptors.
For readers without a subscription to the journal, a preprint of the manuscript draft is available here.
Popular science article: The hand of RNA
2023:
"Blind men and an elephant": The need for animals in research, drug safety studies, and understanding civilizational diseases.
Anbalagan S. Animal Model Exp Med. 2023. doi: 10.1002/ame2.12364.
The big question asked: Are we ready to replace animal model organisms with other nonanimal model systems?
Major findings: Yes and NO. Several arguments about the limitations of nonanimal model systems including the AI-tools in drug discovery are highlighted.
Selected publications:
2024:
Targeted blocking of gene splicing can dysregulate intron-embedded microRNAs.
Ali MH, Kopec P, Kwiatkowski W, Nedunchezhian N, Pecherz S, Kowalewska N, Gnutti B, Finazzi D, Anbalagan S. bioRxiv. 2024. doi: 10.1101/2024.12.04.626772.
The big question asked: Why anti-sense oligonucleotides (ASOs) fail in clinical trials and why are the phenotypes between translation- vs splice-blocking ASOs are different?
Major findings: Apart from the TP53-induced offtarget effects of ASOs, the phenotype arising from splice-blocking ASOs can also be due to the intronic non-coding RNAs embedded in the genes targeted by the ASOs.
2023:
A ligand-receptor interactome atlas of the zebrafish.
Chodkowski M, Zielezinski A, Anbalagan S. iScience. 2023. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.107309.
The big question asked: There are human and mice protein ligand-receptor atlases and tools to identify ligand-receptor pairs, why there is none for zebrafish?
Major findings: We provide the zebrafish research community with a deep learning-based prediction of cellular localization of the zebrafish proteome, ligand-receptor interactions (based on zebrafish and its interologs protein-protein interactions), and open-source scripts (Github: DanioTalk) to identify such pairs in -omics datasets.
Stress resilience is established during development and is regulated by complement factors.
Swaminathan A, Gliksberg M, Anbalagan S, Wigoda N, Levkowitz G. Cell Rep. 2023. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2022.111973.
The big question asked in this research collaboration: Why some animals are susceptible to stress while others are resilient to stress? Is there a genetic component to stress resilience in zebrafish?
Major findings: There are genetic components to stress resilience also in zebrafish. And our data suggest it to be dependent on proteins that are well known for their roles in the immune system.
2021:
Endocrine cross-talk between the gut microbiome and glial cells in development and disease.
Anbalagan S. J Neuroendocrinol. 2021. doi: 10.1111/jne.12924.
The big question asked: How many different endocrine signaling can occur between non-host factors such as the gut microbiome and glial cells? and are those signaling important for animal development or disease ontology?
Major findings: Multiple research works support the importance of such endocrine interactions. In addition, in this manuscript, the term 'gasocrine' is coined for the first time in English language-based scientific society journal.
2019:
Robo2 regulates synaptic oxytocin content by affecting actin dynamics.
Anbalagan S, Blechman J, Gliksberg M, Gordon L, Rotkopf R, Dadosh T, Shimoni E, Levkowitz G. Elife. 2019. doi: 10.7554/eLife.45650.
2018:
Pituicyte Cues Regulate the Development of Permeable Neuro-Vascular Interfaces.
Anbalagan S, Gordon L, Blechman J, Matsuoka RL, Rajamannar P, Wircer E, Biran J, Reuveny A, Leshkowitz D, Stainier DYR, Levkowitz G.
Dev Cell. 2018. doi: 10.1016/j.devcel.2018.10.017.
Genome Editing Reveals Idiosyncrasy of CNGA2 Ion Channel-Directed Antibody Immunoreactivity Toward Oxytocin.
Blechman J, Anbalagan S, Matthews GG, Levkowitz G. Front Cell Dev Biol. 2018. doi: 10.3389/fcell.2018.00117.
For a complete list of preprints: bioRxiv ; OSF Preprints ; Zenodo.
Selected preprints:
2024:
Zebrafish embryo cells will require protein gasoreceptors to sense environment-derived oxygen, a distant signal. OSF Preprints. 2024. doi:10.31219/osf.io/ephfm.
Impact of gasocrine signaling. Anbalagan S. OSF Preprints. 2024. doi:10.31219/osf.io/nwby2.
Preprints in preparation:
Gasocrine theory. Zenodo. 2024. doi:10.5281/zenodo.13170379.
Why do the majority of drugs fail in clinical trials? My search for a moksha in biology. Zenodo. 2024. doi:10.5281/zenodo.11079992.