Dr. Ranjana Arya
 

Dr. Ranjana Arya
Assistant Professor
Ph: 011-26738754
Email: ranjanaa@mail.jnu.ac.in ; arya.ranjana24@gmail.com

Education: 

Ph.D.  (Life Sciences), Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
M.Sc. (Biotechnology), Madurai Kamaraj University, Madurai

Career:

2008-
Assistant Professor, School of Biotechnology, JNU, New Delhi
2004-2008
Senior Research Scientist, Ranbaxy Research Laboratories, Gurgaon
2002-2004
Post Doctoral Associate, Carolina Cardiovascular Center, University of   North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA
2001-2002
Post Doctoral Fellow, Division of Rheumatology, Immunology & Allergy,
Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA

Area of Interest:

  • Recombinant DNA Technology and Cell Biology

Summary of research:

Distal myopathy with rimmed vacuoles (DMRV) or hereditary inclusion body myopathy (HIBM) is an autosomal recessive myopathy with progressive muscle disorders and is pathologically characterized by formation of numerous autophagosomes called rimmed vacuoles. HIBM has been identified in Indian patients with compound and heterozygous genotype. DMRV/HIBM usually starts to affect adults from 15 years of age upto 40 years, with an average onset of 26 years and with an initial symptom of altered gait. However, the precise mechanism that leads to the formation of rimmed vacuoles has remained elusive. DMRV/HIBM is caused by mutations in the UDP-N-acetylglucosamine 2-epimerase/N-acetylmannosamine kinase (GNE) gene which encodes a bifunctional enzyme that catalyzes the rate-limiting step in sialic acid biosynthesis. The status of sialylation in wild type vs mutant GNE cell lines is not clear. In the laboratory, we are interested to study the effect of various GNE mutations on sialylation of proteins and formation of rimmed vacuoles in mammalian cells. This would provide insights into many biological processes such as cell adhesion and signal transduction which is associated with sialylation of glycoproteins and glycolipids.

Honors/Awards:

  • American Heart Association Scientific Sessions, New Orleans, 2004 (Oral Presentation).
  • Young Scientist travel fellowship Award to attend 18th International Congress of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology held in Birmingham, England, 2000
  • Junior research fellowship award to pursue doctoral studies and Lectureship (1995) from Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) India.
  • GATE qualified with a score of 97.34, India. (1996)

Research Projects:

  • "Manipulation of Sialic acid biosynthetic pathway using GNE and its effect on cytoskeletal organization" granted by Council of Scientific and Industrial Research
    (CSIR ), India.
  • "Possible role of key Sialic acid biosynthetic enzyme (UDP-N-acetylglucosamine 2-epimerase/Mannosamine kinase) in apoptosis" granted by Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), India.
  • "Expression and characterization of bifunctional enzyme UDP-N-acetylglucosamine 2-epimerase/N-acetylmannosamine kinase in Dictyostelium discoideum" granted by Department of Science and Technology (DST), India.

Selected Publications:

  1. Grover, S and Arya R. Role of UDP- N -Acetylglucosamine2-Epimerase/ N -Acetylmannosamine Kinase (GNE) in ß1-Integrin-Mediated Cell Adhesion.
    Mol Neurobiol. 2014 Jan 29 DOI: 10.1007/s12035-013-8604-6.
  2. Tu, C, Ortega-Cava,C.F., Winograd, P., Stantona, M.J., Reddi, A.L., Dodge, I., Arya, R., Dimri, M., Clubba, R.J., Naramura, M., Wagnera, K., Band,V. ,and Band, H. Endosomal sorting complex required for transport (ESCRT) pathway-dependent late endosome/lysosome traffic regulates the localization of active Src at focal adhesions. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 2010, 107 (37), 16107-12.
  3. Singh, D, Rani, R., Rajendran, R., Kaur NJ, Pandey, A., Chopra, P., Jain, T., Jain, M., Grover, S., Arya, R. and Saini, KS. Human spleen tyrosine kinase, Syk, recombinant expression system for high throughput assays. Biotechnol. J., 2010, 5 (2), 201-212.
  4. Arya, R., Bhattacharya, A. and Saini, K.S. Dictyostelium discoideum--a promising expression system for the production of eukaryotic proteins. Faseb J, 2008, 22 (12): 4055-4066.
  5. Nanda K, Chatterjee M, Arya R, Mukherjee S, Saini KS, Dastidar S, Ray A. Optimization and validation of a reporter gene assay for screening of phosphodiesterase inhibitors in a high throughput system. Biotechnol J. 2008, 3 (9-10):1276-1279.
  6. Arya R, Gupta S, Aslam S, Kaur NJ, Seth A, Eapen MS, Malik R, Vijayakrishnan L, Saini KS. Purification of recombinant human phosphodiesterase 7A expressed in Dictyostelium discoideum. Protein Expr. Purif., 2008,61:149-154.
  7. Arya, R., Aslam, S., Gupta, S., Bora, R.S., Vijayakrishnan, V., Gulati, P., Naithani, S., Mukhrjee, S., Dastidar, S., Bhattacharya, A., and Saini, K.S. Production and characterization of pharmacologically active recombinant human phosphodiesterase 4B2 in Dictyostelium discoideum. Biotechnol. J., 2008, 3(7):938-47.
  8. Malik, R., Bora,R,S., Gupta D., Sharma, P., Arya, R., Chaudhary, S., and Saini, K.S. Cloning, stable expression of human phosphodiesterase 7A and development of an assay for screening of PDE7 selective inhibitors. Appl. Microbiol Biotechnol. 2008, 77: 1167-1173.
  9. Bora, R.S., Malik, R. , Arya, R. , Gupta, D., Singh, V., Agarwal, N., Dastidar, S.G., Ray, A., and Saini, K.S. A reporter gene assay for screening of PDE4 subtype selective inhibitors. Biochemic. Biophys. Res. Comm. 2007, 356:153-158.
  10. Vishwakarma RA, Anand MT, Arya R, Vats D and Bhattacharya A. Glycosylated inositol phospholipid from Entamoeba histolytica: Identification and structural characterization. Mol Biochem Parasitol. 2006, 145(1):121-124.
  11. Arya. R., Kedar, V., Hwang, JR., McDonough, H., Li, HH., Taylor, J., and Patterson, C. Muscle Ring Finger protein-1 inhibits RACK1-dependent PKC? activation and prevents cardiomyocyte hypertrophy. J. Cell Biol. 2004, 167(6):1147-59.
  12. Kedar, V., McDonough, H., Arya, R., Li, HH., Rockman, HA., and Patterson, C. Muscle ring finger-1 is a ubiquitin ligase that degrades cardiac Troponin I. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 2004, 101(52):18135-40.
  13. Li, H.H., Kedar, V., Zhang, C., McDonough, H., Arya, R., Wang, D., and Patterson C. Atrogin-1 inhibits cardiac hypertrophy. J. Clin. Invest. 2004, 114(8):1058-71.
  14. Arya.R., Mehra, A., Bhattacharya, S., Vishwakarma, R.A. and Bhattacharya, A. Biosynthesis of Entamoeba histolytica proteophosphoglycan in vitro. Mol.Biol.Parasitol 2003, 126: 1-8 .
  15. Bhattacharya, A., Arya, R., Clark, C.G. and Ackers, J.P. Absence of lipophosphoglycan-like glycoconjugates in Entamoeba dispar. Parasitology 2000; 120: 31-35.

Number of Students Supervised :

M.Sc. Student supervised and degree awarded 10
Ph.D. student degree awarded 01
Ph.D. student under supervision 04
M.Sc. students under supervision 02

 

 

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