Research Projects

Early and accurate diagnosis of silicosis is crucial for minimizing the incidence of the disease. Current diagnostic tools are time-consuming and inefficient for early detection. There are two main novel elements in the current proposal. Firstly, the proposal aims to develop a novel series of smart dyes that are capable of the fluorescence-based selective recognition of quadruplex DNA. These smart dyes exhibit nearly 1400-fold fluorescence enhancement in presence of quadruplex DNA, which is also 35-fold greater than in the presence of single-stranded or duplex DNA. The use of such a selective optical probe for quadruplex nucleic acids will enable the easier assessment of telomeric DNA in the context of silicosis. While doing so, the proposal thereby aims to elucidate a novel quadruplex DNA-based biomarker of silicosis. The variation in telomere length and unorthodox quadruplex structures formed thereof has been speculated to play a key role in the progression of pulmonary diseases due to oxidative stress. In fact, pulmonary inflammation has been linked to oxidative stress and is likely to result in the emergence of a congeneric set of markers. In particular, a change in the length of guanine-rich telomeres is known to produce different quadruplex morphologies. A chemical agent that is capable of selective detection and analysis of these non-canonical quadruplex structures vis-à-vis single stranded or duplex DNA is expected to provide a clinical method for the prognosis of silicosis. The discovery of these biomarkers will also be useful to discriminate the severity of silicosis and assess the progression of silicosis among mining and other workers exposed to free silica dust. The smart dye will be developed which interacts with Quadruplex nucleic acid biomarkers for silicosis. The correlation between telomere length and quadruplex nucleic acid variations in silicosis will be established in this study. A diagnostic test for silicosis will be developed based on selective fluorescence enhancement of novel dimeric cyanine dyes. The result will lead to the identification of a potential panel of biomarkers for early diagnosis of silicosis in miners. It will help towards the initiation of proper therapeutic treatment.