
Pucadyil Lab
Membrane remodelling protein machines and their relevance to cellular physiology

Cell membranes are formed by the spontaneous self-assembly of amphipathic lipids into a 5 nanometer-thin bilayer. Membranes are highly resilient to bending, fission, fusion and rupture and is perhaps the reason for evolution choosing lipids as the material to contain life inside cells.
But cells are filled with numerous membrane-bound compartments or organelles, which implies that cells have evolved mechanisms to remodel membranes. Membrane remodelling requires specialised protein machines that tether and bend membranes for fusion and fission. These function contribute to organelle biogenesis and naturally have a tremendous impact on cellular physiology.
The Pucadyil Lab's focus is to understand regulatory mechanisms of some of the well-know membrane remodelling protein machines. We also focus on discovering novel membrane remodelling protein machines and understand their functions in cellular physiology.
Lab news
March 21, 2023
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Himani gets invited to give a talk at the EMBO Cell Polarity and Membrane Dynamics meeting.
March 16, 2023
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Thomas' invited perspective piece on mitochondrial fission published in Molecular Cell.
February 9, 2023
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Himani's paper on a novel variable loop in dynamin accepted in PNAS.
January 20-24, 2023
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The Pucadyil Lab attends the 45th All India Cell Biology Conference at Varanasi. This is somewhat of a lab retreat as well (see the photos).
September 4, 2022
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Himani's paper on a novel variable loop in dynamin posted on the bioarxiv.
August 30, 2022
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Uma, Megha and Gurmail get selected to present posters at the EMBO Phosphoinositide meeting.
June 22, 2022
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Krishnendu get the EMBO Travel Grant to attend the EMBO Birth and Fission of Cellular Compartments meeting.
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Shilpa get the Infosys Travel Grant to attend the EMBO Birth and Fission of Cellular Compartments meeting.
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Our response to a recent paper claiming that Drp1 does not catalyze fission gets published as Letter to the Editor in PNAS.
April 19, 2022
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The Pucadyil Lab gets awarded the Team Science Grant from DBT Wellcome Trust India Alliance.
February 14, 2022
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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.
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Krishnendu's paper on metal binding in the mitochondrial Drp1 accepted in a special issue of membrane remodelling in the Journal of Membrane Biology.
Indian Institute of Science Education and Research
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