The attractiveness of the zebrafish as a model organism is increasing because of the continuously improved genomic tools and methodologies in the functional study of genes. Various Scientists are working across India. We have presented our desk findings below.
The zebrafish research group members at the IGIB, New Delhi, and their core scientific areas of research are described in this study. Prof. Sridhar Sivasubbu’s group used a combination of genetic and genomic tools to unveil gene function and genome organization in vertebrates. They fulfilled a genome-wide transcriptome profiling analysis of the three cardiac chambers in the zebrafish heart using RNA sequencing. The study identified 68 differentially expressed zebrafish cardiac chamber genes that have corresponding human orthologs. Moreover, Sivasubbu’s group created a database for intercommunication of zebrafish gene annotation named as ‘‘The zebrafish GenomeWiki’’ which implements asemantically linked Database ( http://genome.igib.res.in). The Zebrafish GenomeWiki enables users to comment, annotate, edit, and rate this genetic information.
Dr.Chethana Sachidanandan’s group from the same institute, Zebrafish Chemical Genetics Lab, is interested to identify the molecular players important for development and disease pathophysiology using a combination of chemical and genetic screens in zebrafish.They discovered a noreremophilane with strong anti-angiogenic effects on developing zebrafish embryos and tumor-induced angiogenesis in a zebrafish xenograft model.
The third group at IGIB is headed by a computational biologist, Dr. Vinod Scaria, whose group analyzed the zebrafish genome toward understanding their parallels in the vertebrate genome. They identified eight miRNAs related to the development and maintenance of vasculature in zebrafish embryos by a reverse genetic approach. Over-expression of miR-142a-3p resulted in the loss of vascular integrity, vascular remodeling, and bleeding during zebrafish embryonic development, while malfunctioning of miR-142a-3pcaused abnormal vascular remodeling. These findings have implications in wound repair, tumor growth, and development.
The fourth group from the same place is headed by Dr. Beena Pillai, and they are interested to understand microRNA mediated gene regulation in zebrafish, including neural cell differentiation, brain development, and maternal inheritance.
Recently, Sridhar Sivasubbu’s group from IGIB created a catalog of a large number of long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) in zebrafish largely from the three annotation sets and manual curation of literature to compile a total of 2267 lncRNA transcripts in zebrafish. The information is freely available at URL: http://genome.igib.res.in/zflncRNApedia.
A team led by Dr. Mohammed M. Idris from CCMB, Hy-derabad deciphered the mechanism involved in regeneration of missing body parts in the tiny fish. They mainly analyzed the proteomic and gene expression of the brain, caudal fin, olfactory bulb, and kidney in zebrafish.
Dr. Sukla Gosh, an Associate Professor from the University of Calcutta, Kolkata focused on zebrafish to understand the signals responsible for the initiation, as well as maintenance of regeneration responses in the spinal cord after injury. This group was trying to provide a genetic blueprint of diverse cellular responses during spinal cord regeneration.
Dr. Asamanja Chattoraj in Biological Rhythm Lab at the Institute of Bioresources and Sustainable Development (IBSD) attempted to demonstrate the circadian mRNA expression of clock-associated genes and the gene related to melatonin biosynthesis. His group confirmed the ability of zebrafish to biosynthesize melatonin with significant difference between day and night.
Dr.Surajit Sinha, an Associate Professor from the Department of Organic Chemistry, Indian Association for the Cultivation of Sciences, Kolkata focused on small molecule modulation of Hedgehog dependent physiology using zebrafish as a model organism.
Dr. Aparna Chowdari from CIFE (Central Institute of Fisheries, Versova Mumbai) has been studying..