RNA-Bio Research Group

Viral infection is a common cause of disease. Outbreak of zoonotic viral diseases such as SARS and Ebola have high mortality rate , as there is a lack of effective prevention and therapeutic measures. Instead, recovery from viral infections often depend on the immune system, which can be divided into adaptive and innate immunity . The innate antiviral immunity in mammalian cells is mediated by interferons, whereby interferon stimulated genes (ISGs) are upregulated to establish an antiviral state. We are interested in interferon-based antiviral response in host cells, particularly in the detection of viral nucleic acids, the modulation of Janus kinase -Signal transducer and activator of transcription (JAK-STAT) signaling pathway, and the role of stress granules in antiviral activity. Our current research is on interferon regulatory factor 9 (IRF9), which is involved in signaling that results in upregulation of ISGs during type I interferon response. We want to elucidate the mec...

Non-protein-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) do not encode proteins but function directly at the level of the RNA or in complexes with protein as RNP. Bacterial small npcRNAs constitute a structurally diverse class of molecules that are typically 50–200 nt long and play a crucial role in many cellular networks, including responses to environmental stress, plasmid and viral replication, quorum sensing and bacterial virulence. These npcRNAs act either by base pairing with target mRNAs or by modulating protein activity. We aim to identify and characterize npcRNAs from clinical pathogen. Our model pathogens are Plasmodium falciparum, Salmonella typhi, Vibrio cholera and Mycobacterium tuberculosis. We combined experimental and bioinformatics strategies in our npcRNAs search. The discovery of novel npcRNA in pathogenic organism will lead to studies involving structure, expression, function, roles in diseases and potential target for diagnostic.

Molecular techniques such as polymerase chain reactions (PCR/RT-PCR) revolutionized the diagnosis of infectious diseases and provided fundamental insights with regard to epidemiology and clinical presentation. PCR-based diagnosis is rapid, specific, sensitive and is often used to diagnose infections pathogens especially those difficult to grow in culture. IDC transform its basic research to applied diagnostic medicine. Through our infectomic research, we identified biomarker such as ncRNAs gene, metabolomes , nuclei acid aptamer and peptides that could act as molecular diagnostic targets. We further developed, optimised and performed in-house molecular diagnostic tests for the detection and identification infectious pathogens. Current pipeline of molecular diagnostic at IDC are: - Nucleic acid amplification test for the identification of M. tuberculosis complex - Gel-based PCR for the detection and differentiation of salmonellosis - Gel-based and real-time PCR diagnos...

Aptanostics is a new term coined, derived from the word aptamer and diagnostics. Nucleic acid aptamers have attracted significant attention in the field of clinical diagnosis due to numerous merits, such as high affinity, high specificity, smaller in size, non- immunogenicity , stable structures, and ease of synthesis. Aptamer is a short synthetic oligonucleotide, DNA/RNA that can be generated by in-vitro selection procedures and binds to a wide variety of targets ranging from small molecules such as drug, amino acids, metal ions, proteins, toxins and whole cells. Thus aptamers can be considered as universal receptors that rival antibodies in diagnostics as a tool of molecular recognition. The capabilities exhibited by aptamer far supersede that of antibodies which have also made remarkable impact on a wide range of applications. In collaboration with Dr. Subash Gopinath from National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Tsukuba, Japan, the aptanos...