Department of Bioscience & Bioengineering

&ldquo;IIT Jodhpur is committed to impart quality education to facilitate the creation of qualified, competent and responsible human resources to meet the emerging technological challenges of the world. It is working towards creating an equitable learning platform that is positive, accessible and effective in the face of the modern societal and scientific advancements.

Flexibility in curriculum, in all its academic programs, encompassing elements of teaching, research, creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship is the most unique feature of IIT Jodhpur. The Department of Science and Technology (DST), under the National Mission on Cyber Physical Systems, has identified IIT Jodhpur as a Technology &amp; Innovation Hub in the area of Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality. The institute has also been nominated as the coordinator for the Jodhpur City and Knowledge Cluster by the Office of Principal Scientific Adviser, Government of India.

The sprawling 852-acre IIT Jodhpur campus is a majestic tribute to the deep-rooted diverse cultural heritage of the region. The campus is an architectural masterpiece, which is slated to become an international exemplar of sustainability with net-zero energy, and advanced water and waste management strategies.&rdquo;

IIT Jodhpur

Exploring the symbiotic nature of biological systems can result in valuable knowledge for computer networks. Biologically inspired approaches to security in networks are interesting to evaluate because of the analogies between network security and survival of human body under pathogenic attacks. Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is a network based on multiple low-cost communication and computing devices connected to sensor nodes which sense physical parameters. While the spread of viruses in wired systems has been studied in-depth, applying trust in WSN is an emerging research area. Security threats can be introduced in WSN through various means, such as a benevolent sensor node turning fraudulent after a certain period of time. The proposed research work uses biological inspirations and machine learning techniques for adding security against such threats. While it uses machine learning techniques to identify the fraudulent nodes, consecutively by deriving inspiration from human immune system it effectively nullify the impact of the fraudulent ones on the network. Proposed work has been implemented in LabVIEW platform and obtained results that demonstrate the accuracy, robustness of the proposed model. © 2014 IEEE.

World University root node

Department of Mechanical Engineering

2014 6th International Conference on Communication Systems and Networks, COMSNETS 2014

Novel approach for security in Wireless Sensor Network using bio-inspirations

Introduction: Although C-X-C motif chemokine 12 (CXCL12) has been shown to bind to C-X-C chemokine receptor type 7 (CXCR7), the exact molecular mechanism regulations by CXCL12/CXCR7 axis in breast tumor growth and metastasis are not well understood. CXCR7 expression has been shown to be upregulated during pathological processes such as inflammation and cancer.Methods: Breast cancer cell lines were genetically silenced or pharmacologically inhibited for CXCR7 and/or its downstream target signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3). 4T1 or 4T1 downregulated for CXCR7 and 4T1.2 breast cancer cell lines were injected in mammary gland of BALB/c mice to form tumors, and the molecular pathways regulating tumor growth and metastasis were assessed.Results: In this study, we observed that CXCL12 enhances CXCR7-mediated breast cancer migration. Furthermore, genetic silencing or pharmacologic inhibition of CXCR7 reduced breast tumor growth and metastasis. Further elucidation of mechanisms revealed that CXCR7 mediates tumor growth and metastasis by activating proinflammatory STAT3 signaling and angiogenic markers. Furthermore, enhanced breast tumorigenicity and invasiveness were associated with macrophage infiltration. CXCR7 recruits tumor-promoting macrophages (M2) to the tumor site through regulation of the macrophage colony-stimulating factor (M-CSF)/macrophage colony-stimulating factor receptor (MCSF-R) signaling pathway. In addition, CXCR7 regulated breast cancer metastasis by enhancing expression of metalloproteinases (MMP-9, MMP-2) and vascular cell-adhesion molecule-1 (VCAM-1). We also observed that CXCR7 is highly expressed in invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC) and metastatic breast tissue in human patient samples. In addition, high CXCR7 expression in tumors correlates with worse prognosis for both overall survival and lung metastasis-free survival in IDC patients.Conclusion: These observations reveal that CXCR7 enhances breast cancer growth and metastasis via a novel pathway by modulating the tumor microenvironment. These findings identify CXCR7-mediated STAT3 activation and modulation of the tumor microenvironment as novel regulation of breast cancer growth and metastasis. These studies indicate that new strategies using CXCR7 inhibitors could be developed for antimetastatic therapy. © 2014 Wani et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

Breast Cancer Research

CXC motif chemokine 12/CXC chemokine receptor type 7 signaling regulates breast cancer growth and metastasis by modulating the tumor microenvironment

Autosomal dominant cerebellar ataxia type I is a heterogenous group of spinocerebellar ataxias with variable neurologic presentations, with age of onset varying from infancy to adulthood. Autosomal dominant cerebellar ataxia type I is composed mainly of 3 prevalent spinocerebellar ataxia types with different pathogenic loci, specifically spinocerebellar ataxia 1 (6p24-p23), spinocerebellar ataxia 2 (12q24.1), and spinocerebellar ataxia 3 (14q32.1). The shared pathogenic mutational event is the expansion of the CAG repeat that results in polyglutamine extended stretches in the encoded proteins. CAG repeat disorders generally show the phenomenon of anticipation, which is more often associated with paternal transmission. In this report, we describe a patient with infantile-onset spinocerebellar ataxia type 2 (∼320 CAG repeat) who inherited the disease from his father (47 CAG repeats). We have summarized the clinical, neuroimaging, electroencephalographic (EEG), and molecular data of previous cases and attempt to highlight the most consistent findings. Our intent is to help treating clinicians to suspect this disorder and to offer timely genetic counseling for a currently potentially untreatable disorder. © The Author(s) 2013.

Journal of Child Neurology

Infantile onset spinocerebellar ataxia 2 (SCA2): A clinical report with review of previous cases

The current study reports the development of bigels using sorbitan monostearate-sesame oil organogel and carbopol 934 hydrogel. The microstructures and physicochemical properties were investigated by microscopy, viscosity measurement, mechanical analysis and differential scanning calorimetry analysis. Fluorescence microscopy confirmed the formation of oil-in-water type of emulsion gel. There was an increase in the strength of the bigels as the proportion of the organogel was increased in the bigels. The developed bigels showed shear-thinning flow behavior. The stress relaxation study suggested viscoelastic nature of the bigels. The developed bigels were biocompatible. Metronidazole, drug of choice for the treatment of bacterial vaginosis, loaded bigels showed diffusion-mediated drug release. The drug loaded gels showed good antimicrobial efficiency against Escherichia coli. In gist, the developed bigels may be used as delivery vehicles for the vaginal delivery of the drugs. © 2014 Published by Elsevier B.V.

Materials Science and Engineering C

Preparation and characterization of novel carbopol based bigels for topical delivery of metronidazole for the treatment of bacterial vaginosis

This communication describes the synthesis, structural investigation and tubulin binding of purine rare imino-tautomer based Ag(i) and Hg(ii)-carbene complexes. These complexes exhibit cytotoxicity through tubulin interaction by binding to a site close to the GTP binding site. © 2014 The Royal Society of Chemistry.

Dalton Transactions

Targeting cytotoxicity and tubulin polymerization by metal-carbene complexes on a purine tautomer platform

Isolation and functional characterization of a stress-inducible transcription factor VuDREB2A from cowpea

Main conclusion: VuDREB2A exists in cowpea as a canonical DREB2-type transcription factor, having the ability to bind dehydration-responsive elements in vitro and confer enhanced drought resistance in transgenic Arabidopsis. Cowpea (Vigna unguiculata L. Walp) is an important cultivated legume that can survive better in arid conditions than other crops. But the molecular mechanisms involved in the drought tolerance of this species remain elusive with very few reported candidate genes. The Dehydration-Responsive Element-Binding Protein2 (DREB2) group of transcription factors plays key roles in plant responses to drought. However, no DREB2 ortholog has been reported from cowpea so far. In this study, we isolated and characterized a gene from cowpea, namely VuDREB2A, encoding a protein of 377 amino acids exhibiting features of reported DREB2-type proteins. In cowpea, VuDREB2A transcript accumulation was highly induced by desiccation, heat and salt, but slightly by exogenous abscisic acid (ABA) treatment. We also isolated the VuDREB2A promoter and predicted stress-responsive cis-elements in it using Arabidopsis microarray data. The E. coli-expressed VuDREB2A protein showed binding to synthetic oligonucleotides with Dehydration-Responsive Elements (DREs) from Arabidopsis, in electrophoretic mobility shift assays. Heterologous expression of VuDREB2A in Arabidopsis significantly improved plant survival under drought. In addition, overexpression of a truncated version of VuDREB2A, after removal of a putative negative regulatory domain (between amino acids 132-182) led to a dwarf phenotype in the transgenic plants. Microarray and quantitative PCR analyses of VuDREB2A overexpressing Arabidopsis revealed up-regulation of stress-responsive genes having DRE overrepresented in their promoters. In summary, our results indicate that VuDREB2A conserves the basic functionality and mode of regulation of DREB2A in Arabidopsis and could be a potent candidate gene for the genetic improvement of drought resistance in cowpea. © 2014 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.

Planta

VuDREB2A, a novel DREB2-type transcription factor in the drought-tolerant legume cowpea, mediates DRE-dependent expression of stress-responsive genes and confers enhanced drought resistance in transgenic Arabidopsis

Regular protein synthesis is a needful and complex task for a healthy cell. Improper folding leads to the deposition of misfolded proteins in cells. Autophagy and ubiquitin-proteasome system (UPS) are the conserved intracellular degradation processes of eukaryotic cells. How exactly these two pathways cross talk to each other is unclear. We do not know how the impairment of autophagy or UPS leads to the disturbance in cellular homeostasis and contribute into cellular aging and neurodegeneration. Here in this review, we will focus on the functional interconnections of autophagy and UPS, and why their loss of function results in abnormal aggregation of misfolded proteotoxic species in cells. Finally, we enumerate and discuss the crucial inducers of autophagy pathways and elaborate their intersection steps, which have been considered to be advantageous in aging linked with the abnormal protein aggregation. The final goal of this review is to improve our current understanding about multifaceted properties and interactions of autophagy and UPS, which may provide new insights to identify novel therapeutic strategies for aging and neurodegenerative diseases. © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media.

Molecular Neurobiology

Autophagy coupling interplay: Can improve cellular repair and aging?

Pseudomonas aeruginosa PGPR2 is a mung bean rhizosphere strain that produces secondary metabolites and hydrolytic enzymes contributing to excellent antifungal activity against Macrophomina phaseolina, one of the prevalent fungal pathogens of mung bean. Genome sequencing was performed using the Ion Torrent Personal Genome Machine generating 1,354,732 reads (6,772,433 sequenced bases) achieving ∼25-fold coverage of the genome. Reference genome assembly using MIRA 3.4.0 yielded 198 contigs.The draft genome of PGPR2 encoded 6803 open reading frames, of which 5314 were genes with predicted functions, 1489 weregenes of known functions, and 80 were RNA-coding genes. Strain specific and core genes of P. aeruginosa PGPR2 that are relevantto rhizospheric habitat were identified by pangenome analysis. Genes involved in plant growth promoting function such as synthesisof ACC deaminase, indole-3-acetic acid, trehalose, mineral scavenging siderophores, hydrogen cyanide, chitinases, acyl homoserinelactones, acetoin, 2,3-butanediol, and phytases were identified. In addition, niche-specific genes such as phosphate solubilising 3-phytase, adhesins, pathway-specific transcriptional regulators, a diguanylate cyclase involved in cellulose synthesis, a receptor forferrienterochelin, a DEAD/DEAH-box helicase involved in stress tolerance, chemotaxis/motility determinants, an HtpX protease,and enzymes involved in the production of a chromanone derivative with potent antifungal activity were identified. Copyright © 2014 Devaraj Illakkiam et al.

Fulltext

International Journal of Genomics

Genome sequencing of a mung bean plant growth promoting strain of P. aeruginosa with biocontrol ability

Our aim in the present work is to develop approximations for the collisional dynamics of traveling waves in the context of granular chains in the presence of precompression. To that effect, we aim to quantify approximations of the relevant Hertzian FPU-type lattice through both the Korteweg-de Vries (KdV) equation and the Toda lattice. Using the availability in such settings of both one-soliton and two-soliton solutions in explicit analytical form, we initialize such coherent structures in the granular chain and observe the proximity of the resulting evolution to the underlying integrable (KdV or Toda) model. While the KdV offers the possibility to accurately capture collisions of solitary waves propagating in the same direction, the Toda lattice enables capturing both copropagating and counterpropagating soliton collisions. The error in the approximation is quantified numerically and connections to bounds established in the mathematical literature are also given. © 2014 American Physical Society.

Physical Review E - Statistical, Nonlinear, and Soft Matter Physics

Characterizing traveling-wave collisions in granular chains starting from integrable limits: The case of the Korteweg-de Vries equation and the Toda lattice