Research Interests

In complex organisms, identical genome is packaged in cell type specific manner during embryonic development – one genome gives rise to multiple epigenomes – that determine the cell type specific expression pattern of genes and cellular identity. Once this packaging is achieved by an intricate developmental program, the chromatin structure is maintained during subsequent cell divisions by epigenetic cellular memory mechanisms. Using Drosophila as our major model organism, we are investigating molecular mechanisms of these processes. We use genetic, cell biology, biochemical and bioinformatics approaches to investigate evolutionarily conserved features of genome organization, chromatin structure and epigenetic regulation of genes during embryonic development. We also investigate functional relevance of non-coding sequences of complex genomes, in particular the repetitive part, in nuclear architecture, chromatin organization and gene regulation. Taking comparative
enomics approach we study molecular basis of the functional features of chromatin level regulatory elements like chromatin domain boundary and cellular memory elements.

Selected Publications

Repeat performance: how do genome packaging and regulation depend on simple sequence repeats Ram P Kumar, Ramamoorthy Senthilkumar, Vipin Singh and Rakesh K Mishra BioEssays 32, 165-174, 2010.

Novel motifs distinguish multiple homologues of Polycomb in vertebrates: expansion and diversification of the epigenetic toolkit Ramamoorthy Senthilkumar and Rakesh K Mishra BMC Genomics 10, 459, 2009.

Transcriptional activation by GAGA factor is through its direct interaction with dmTAF3 Vivek S Chopra, Arumugam Srinivasan, Ram P Kumar, Krishnaveni Mishra, Denis Basquin, Mylène Docquier, Carole Seum, Daniel Pauli, Rakesh K Mishra Dev. Biol. 317, 660-670, 2008.

Boundary Element-Associated Factor 32B Connects Chromatin Domains to the Nuclear Matrix Rashmi U. Pathak, Nandini Rangaraj, Satish Kallappagoudar, Krishnaveni Mishra, and Rakesh K. Mishra Mol. Cell. Biol. 27, 4796-4806, 2007.

Extreme conservation of noncoding DNA near HoxD complex of vertebrates Ch Sabarinadh, S Subramanian, A Tripathi and Rakesh K Mishra BMC Genomics, 5, 75, 2004