Research Projects

The Eastern part of India is overburdened with β-thalassemia cases and carriers. Lack of proper education and literacy about the disease further elevates the incidence of the disease. It has been estimated that 1.5% global populations are carriers and 60,000 babies are born with symptoms annually. While it is evident that awareness programs and educational policies need to be in the right order, clinicians and researchers clearly cannot ignore the burden of this disease. As the search for methods to elevate HbF levels to treat β-hemoglobin disorders such as sickle cell anemia (SCA), beta-thalassemia etc. continues, growing evidence suggests a major role of non-coding RNA-mediated ceRNA network, as a modifier of fetal hemoglobin expression. Recently, lncRNAs have been reported to act as miRNA sponges that can sequester miRNAs and consequently inhibit their interactions with target mRNAs. LncRNAs can also directly bind to the 3’UTR of mRNA, the binding site of miRNA, and thus preventing miRNA-mediated repression or degradation. Circular RNAs, an alternate “backsplice” product over linear transcripts, have been recently added as an integral part of the ceRNA network, by sponging and inhibiting miRNAs. Recently, studies have demonstrated the emerging role of lncRNAs, circRNAs and miRNAs as individual entities in the regulation of fetal hemoglobin (HbF) expression. However, to best of our knowledge no study has focused on the holistic involvement of these ncRNA-mediated ceRNA networks in HbF regulation. It is expected that identification of new lncRNA-mediated ceRNA networks would contribute substantially to our understanding of the regulatory mechanisms of the γ-globin genes and hence bring us closer to developing new therapeutic strategies to treat beta-hemoglobinopathies like β-thalassemia and SCA.