Life Sciences & Biotechnology
Title : | Structural features and nucleosomal landscape of cell(s)-of-origin of circulating cell-free nucleic acid under hypobaric hypoxia at high altitude |
Area of research : | Life Sciences & Biotechnology |
Principal Investigator : | Dr. Aastha Mishra, CSIR- Institute Of Genomics And Integrative Biology, New Delhi |
Timeline Start Year : | 2024 |
Timeline End Year : | 2027 |
Contact info : | aastha.mishra@igib.in |
Details
Executive Summary : | High altitude (HA) has a unique exposome characterized by low partial pressure of oxygen, high UV radiation, and low temperature. Exposure to these harsh conditions results in physiological acclimatization to optimize oxygen supply to tissues. Some sojourners show better tolerance to hypoxia, but in some cases, hypoxia can trigger a maladaptive response leading to various forms of HA illnesses. High altitude pulmonary edema (HAPE) is one of the acute HA illnesses that develops upon rapid ascent to altitudes above 2500 m in otherwise healthy individuals. The research project proposes a detailed exploration of structural features of circulating cell-free DNA (cfDNA) under hypobaric hypoxia at HA. The study will focus on plasma cfDNA's characteristics, including concentration, sizes, length, and sequence context. Two well-defined groups will be studied: Sojourners who suffer with HAPE upon exposure to HA-HAPE-patients (HAPE-p) and Sojourners who visit HA under similar conditions and carry out routine physical activities without suffering from any HA-related disorders (HAPE-f). The subjects will be recruited from SNM Hospital, Leh, Ladakh, and plasma samples will be used for the isolation of circulating cell-free DNA (cfDNA). The sequence composition of cfDNA isolated from HAPE patients and their healthy controls will be used for mapping the nucleosomal landscape of cell(s)-of-origin. High-throughput cfDNA reads will be analyzed for orthogonal and complementary information stored in them, along with traditional mutation-based analysis. |
Co-PI: | Dr. Kumardeep Chaudhary, CSIR- Institute Of Genomics And Integrative Biology, New Delhi-110007 |
Total Budget (INR): | 49,07,347 |
Organizations involved