Pucadyil Lab

Membrane integrity disruption and physiology

Biological membranes are fundamental structures that define the shape and boundaries of cells and organelles. Driven by the hydrophobic effect, lipids spontaneously self-assemble into fluid bilayers in a template-independent manner. This fluid sheet establishes a selective permeability barrier that prevents the free diffusion of ions and solutes, while simultaneously resisting mechanical forces like bending and vesiculation. These unique biophysical attributes make lipid bilayers highly resilient materials, explaining why evolution selected them to encapsulate all living entities.

Despite their role as stable barriers, membrane integrity is constantly and actively disrupted during normal physiological processes. At the nanoscale, transient changes in permeability allow the regulated leakage of ions and solutes to control membrane potential in excitable cells and organelles. At the microscopic scale, the bilayer must undergo radical shape changes during the budding and scission events required for vesicular traffic.

These homeostatic and structural disruptions are managed by highly specialised proteins. The Pucadyil Lab focuses on discovering these novel molecular factors and elucidating their mechanistic and regulatory frameworks. To map these pathways, we carry out biochemical screens to identify target proteins, employ in vitro reconstitution approaches to understand how they work, and investigate their functions in yeast and mammalian cells.

Lab news

April 6, 2026

Thomas takes charge as the Director of the BRIC-National Centre for Cell Science. Learn more from the Director's Report

January 30, 2026

Megha's paper on the antimicrobial peptide LL37 posted on the bioarxiv

January 22, 2026

Keerti graduates with a Ph.D.!!!

September 29, 2025

Keerti participates at the Biomembrane Days 2025 meeting.

June 18, 2025

Shilpa graduates with a Ph.D.!!!

May 30, 2025

Keerti's paper on the cynaobacterial bacterial-like dynamin posted on the bioarxiv

May 26, 2025

Shilpa's and Gurmail's paper on the yeast dynamin Vps1 posted on the bioarxiv

May 22, 2025

Himani's paper showing that the mycobacterial protein Wag 31 tethers membranes accepted in eLife

April 30, 2025

Megha's review on dynamins accepted in Biochemistry

March 19, 2025

Krishnendu's paper in collaboration with Tamas Balla's lab on identifying a lipid-based mechanism that stimulates mitochondrial fission accepted in Nature Communications

October 27-29 , 2024

2nd Organelle Biology and Membrane Trafficking meeting organised by Nagaraj and Thomas at IISER Pune

August 1, 2024

Shivansh and Sejal join the Pucadyil Lab as graduate students.

May 29, 2024

Swayam graduates with a BS-MS degree. Himani, Shomu and Krishnendu graduate with a Ph.D. Himani received the best thesis award in the Biology department.

May 1, 2024

Everything you wanted to know about SMrT templates can be found in Uma's review in Biochemical Society Transactions

April 9, 2024

Soumya's paper on reconstituting membrane tubulation and fission using novel cushioned bilayer templates accepted in PNAS

March 4, 2024

Krishnendu graduates with a Ph.D. !!!

February 13, 2024

Himani graduates with a Ph.D. !!!

February 5, 2024

Soumya graduates with a Ph.D. !!!

September 17, 2023

Soumya's paper on reconstituting membrane tubulation and fission using novel cushioned bilayer templates posted on the bioarxiv

June 19, 2023

Himani's review on gears in dynamin-catalyzed fission gets published in Current Opinions in Cell Biology

March 21, 2023

Himani gets invited to give a talk at the EMBO Cell Polarity and Membrane Dynamics meeting

March 16, 2023

Thomas' invited perspective piece on mitochondrial fission published in Molecular Cell

February 9, 2023

Himani's paper on a novel variable loop in dynamin accepted in PNAS

February 4, 2023

Thomas gets invited to speak at the Biophysical Society's Membrane Fusion and Budding meeting in Colorado

January 20-24, 2023

The Pucadyil Lab attends the 45th All India Cell Biology Conference at Varanasi

September 4, 2022

Himani's paper on a novel variable loop in dynamin posted on the bioarxiv

August 30, 2022

Uma, Megha and Gurmail get selected to present posters at the EMBO Phosphoinositide meeting

June 22, 2022

Krishnendu get the EMBO Travel Grant to attend the EMBO Birth and Fission of Cellular Compartments meeting
Shilpa get the Infosys Travel Grant to attend the EMBO Birth and Fission of Cellular Compartments meeting
Our commentary on Drp1 and membrane fission gets published as Letter to the Editor in PNAS

April 19, 2022

The Pucadyil Lab gets awarded the Team Science Grant from DBT Wellcome Trust India Alliance

February 14, 2022

Devika's and Himani's paper on SUPER template pulldowns accepted in a special issue dedicated to Erwin London in the Journal of Membrane Biology
Krishnendu's paper on metal binding in the mitochondrial Drp1 accepted in a special issue of membrane remodelling in the Journal of Membrane Biology