Research

Details :

Ongoing projects :

(i) Bioinformatics
• Genome analysis of novel macrofungi Ganoderma wiiroense and Fulvifomes fastuosus.
• Molecular Docking of secondary metabolites from Desmodium gangeticum used as traditional drugs
• Draft Genome Sequence analysis of Bacillus thuringiensis 391 exhibits selective anticancer activity
(ii) Mycology
• Macrofungal diversity in Southern Tamil Nadu.
• Bioprospection of native Polyporous fungi for medical applications
• Immunostimulants from macrofungi for aquaculture applications.
(iii) Microbial biotechnology
• Purification and characterization of Parasporin protein from B. thuringiensis LDC 391.
• Production and characterization of PHA from indigenous Bacillus sp.

Projects completed : 1) Environment and health
a) Mycology - basidiomycetes
• Bioprospection of Basidiomycetes and molecular phylogenetic analysis using internal transcribed spacer (ITS) and 5.8S rRNA gene sequence
b) Biopolymer - Polyhydroxyalkanoates
• The research was mainly focused on exploration of indigenous microorganisms to produce industrially significant biopolymer.
• Already, this biopolymer had been proved as a potential immunostimulant in Fish.
• Further, invitro cytotoxicity analysis will pave way for its wide range of application in biomedical field.
2) Medical microbiology
(i) Dengue (Vector borne disease)
• In silico analysis of the peptide sequences from Dengue virus envelope glycoprotein (domain III) and their similarity with the host proteins have been studied.
• It was found that the domain III envelope glycoprotein is structurally similar to human proteins such as fibronectin and tenesin that use integrins as receptors.
• This computational prediction provides an understanding for the virus-host interactions and helps to identify potential targets in the host.
(ii) Parasporin protein as anti-cancer agent
• Isolated and identified native Bt strains which have cytocidal activity against cancer cells from Madurai, Tamilnadu.
• Further protein-protein interaction can be studied through bioinformatics
• It was found that the isolated crystal protein (Parasporin) was active against several colorectal cancer cell lines but was harmless to the control cells (normal human lymphocytes).