+91-80-22932659 / 22932548

Srimonta Gayen

Assistant Professor

Research

Epigenetic regulation in early embryogenesis, X-chromosome inactivation

Emerging evidence implicates that epigenetics plays a major role in development and disease. Unlike irreversible mutations in DNA, epigenetic modifications are reversible. This inherent plasticity makes epigenetic changes associated with diseases potentially amenable to manipulation via therapeutic intervention. However, much about the mechanistic aspects of epigenetic regulation remains to be understood. Our research strives to further the understanding of mechanism of epigenetic regulation through the study of X-chromosome inactivation, imprinting and stochastic allelic gene expression during early-mammalian development using mouse/human embryos, germ cells and pluripotent stem cells. The long-term goal of these studies is not only to advance our understanding of basic epigenetic mechanisms during development, but also to extend the knowledge from the early development to (a) cancer stem cell biology to better understand cancer pathogenesis and provide therapeutic intervention (b) to develop a clinical strategy to prevent the gender bias issue in babies born through in vitro fertilization (IVF) and enhancement of IVF success rate and (c) improving the quality of human iPSC.

Selected Publications

  • Naik HC, Hari K, Chandel D, Jolly MK, Gayen S (2021) Single cell analysis reveal X-upregulation is not global in pre-gastrulation embryos iScience, 25 (6), 104465.
  • Samanta, M.K*., Gayen, S*., Harris, C., Maclary, E., Murata-Nakamura, Y., Malcore, R.M., Porter, R.S., Garay, P.M., Vallianatos, C.N., Samollow, P.B. and Iwase, S., 2022. Activation of Xist by an evolutionarily conserved function of KDM5C demethylase. Nature communications, 13(1), pp.1-16
  • Naik HC, Hari K, Chandel D, Mandal S, Jolly MK, Gayen S (2021) Semi-coordinated allelic-bursting shape dynamic random monoallelic expression in pregastrulation embryos. iScience 24 (9), 102954
  • Mandal S, Chandel D, Kaur H, Majumdar S, Arava M, Gayen S (2020) Single Cell Analysis Reveals Partial Reactivation of X-chromosome Instead of Chromosome wide Dampening in Naïve Human Pluripotent Stem Cells. Stem Cell Reports, 14 (5), 745-754
  • Y Xiang, Y Zhang, Q Xu, C Zhou, B Liu, Z Du, K Zhang, Zhang B, Wang X, Gayen S, Liu L, Wang Y, Li Y, Wang Q, Kalantry S, Li L, Wei Xie (2019) Epigenomic analysis of gastrulation identifies a unique chromatin state for primed pluripotency Nature Genetics, 1-11.
  • Zhang H, Gayen S, Xiong J, Zhou B, Shanmugam AK, Sun Y, Karatas H, Liu L, Rao RC, Wang S, Nesvizhskii AI, Kalantry S, and Dou Y (2016) MLL1 Inhibition Reprograms Epiblast Stem cells to Naive Pluripotency. Cell Stem Cell 18(4), 481-494

All Publications

People

Postdoctoral Fellow
Dr. Lakshmi Soujanya
soujanya27[at]gmail.com
PhD students
Sudeshna Majumder
sudeshnam[at]iisc.ac.in
Avinchal Manhas
Primordial germ cells specification Transgenerational epigenetic inheritance
Runumi Baro
m6A RNA methylation Early development X-chromosome inactivation
Swati Negi
m6A DNA methylation Early development X-chromosome inactivation
Harshada Jadhav
Epigenetic basis of PCOS pathogenesis Prime and naive pluripotency X-chromosome inactivation
Integrated PhD
Maniteja Arava
manitejaa[at]iisc.ac.in
Amlan Jyoti Naskar
Transcriptional burst and autosomal monoallelic expression
Sharmista Saha
Naive and prime pluripotency
Project assistant / JRF
Hemant C Naik
hemantcnaik[at]gmail.com
Pari Chitran
Transcriptional bursting and cell fate specification