Life Sciences & Biotechnology
Title : | A systems approach to understanding immune responses and metabolic reprogramming in Type 2 Diabetes |
Area of research : | Life Sciences & Biotechnology |
Focus area : | Systems Biology, Immunometabolism |
Principal Investigator : | Prof. Nagasuma Chandra, Indian Institute Of Science, Bangalore, Karnataka |
Timeline Start Year : | 2024 |
Timeline End Year : | 2027 |
Contact info : | nchandra@iisc.ac.in |
Details
Executive Summary : | "The study aims to investigate the relationship between Type 2 Diabetes (T2D) and infections in Indians. T2D is a metabolic disorder with a new immunological facet, revealing a low-grade chronic inflammatory state in patients. T2D patients have a higher risk of infections than healthy individuals, but the magnitude and cause of this effect are under-studied. Trained immunity, an emerging immunological phenomenon, may hold key insights into the relationship between T2D and infections.
Trained immunity manifests via epigenetic changes that are retained post clearance of the first insult, leading to increased chromatin accessibility and gene expression, especially of proinflammatory cytokines upon the second infection. This exacerbated inflammation leads to an immuno-compromised state in T2D individuals with a pre-existing chronic inflammatory phenotype. The researchers will use cutting-edge technologies and experimental and computational approaches to address this question. Preliminary analysis has shown a high similarity between pathways perturbed in trained immunity and T2D, indicating a possible correlation between the two. High-throughput sequencing techniques will be used to uncover transcriptional and epigenetic changes by trained immunity in T2D and their relation to the risk of infections. The study will also measure changes in the rate of glycolysis and oxygen consumption, a key hallmark of trained immunity, to reveal metabolic changes occurring. An in-house network analysis technique will be used to identify pathways and gene interactions altered in the process that link T2D and infections, thus determining therapeutically targetable players." |
Total Budget (INR): | 49,98,224 |
Organizations involved