Sourav Roy

University of Texas at El Paso | UTEP · Department of Biological Sciences

Females of the vector mosquito species require vertebrate blood for egg development and consequently transmit numerous disease pathogens of humans and animals. Previous studies have determined that a steroid hormone, 20-hydroxyecdysone (20E), is the major hormone regulating egg maturation in female mosquitoes. Its action has been particularly well...

Mutation of the GABRA1 gene is associated with neurodevelopmental defects and epilepsy phenotypes. GABRA1 encodes for the α1 subunit of the gamma-aminobutyric acid type A receptor (GABAAR), which regulates the fast inhibitory impulses of the nervous system. Multiple model systems have previously been developed to understand the mechanism by which m...

Essential to improving treatment, prognosis, and detection strategies are the identification and validation of new ethnicity-specific genomic profiles in cellular stress and survival pathways as effective predictors of colorectal cancer (CRC). These pathways are increasingly implicated in tumorigenesis of CRC and in providing resistance to chemothe...

Substantial increases in the conjugation of the main human SUMO paralogs, SUMO1, SUMO2, and SUMO3, are observed upon exposure to different cellular stressors, and such increases are considered important to facilitate cell survival to stress. Despite their critical cellular role, little is known about how the levels of the SUMO modifiers are regulat...

Annually, more than a million individuals are diagnosed with gastrointestinal (GI) cancers worldwide. With the advancements in radio- and chemotherapy and surgery, the survival rates for GI cancer patients have improved in recent years. However, the prognosis for advanced-stage GI cancers remains poor. Site-specific GI cancers share a few common ri...

Giardia lamblia, a protozoan parasite, is a major cause of waterborne infection, worldwide. While the trophozoite form of this parasite induces pathological symptoms in the gut, the cyst form transmits the infection. Since Giardia is a noninvasive parasite, the actual mechanism by which it causes disease remains elusive. We have previously reported...

Over the past 20 years, the explosion of genomic data collection and the cloud computing revolution have made computational and data science research accessible to anyone with a web browser and an internet connection. However, students at institutions with limited resources have received relatively little exposure to curricula or professional devel...

Colorectal cancer (CRC) accounts for 12% and 8% of all estimated new cases of cancer and 11% and 9% of all cancer deaths in Hispanic men and women, respectively. Stress-survival pathways have been implicated in tumorigenesis of CRC and in providing resistance to chemotherapy-induced cell-death by suppressing reactive oxygen species (ROS), repairing...

Background: Prostate cancer (PCa) is the most common non-cutaneous cancer afflicting men, both in the United States and worldwide. Aberrant molecular signaling mechanisms mediated by the Androgen Receptor (AR) are attributed as the main culprits for the initiation and progression of PCa, and research efforts have focused on developing strategies to...

PurposeIndividuals with a family history of type 2 diabetes (FH +) have an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Circulating microRNAs (miRNAs) have been implicated as biomarkers of type 2 diabetes risk. Here, we investigated if four circulating miRNAs related to glucose metabolism were altered in men with a FH + and we conducted a prelimin...

Significance Hematophagous Aedes aegypti mosquitoes spread devastating viral diseases. Upon blood feeding, a steroid hormone, 20-hydroxyecdysone (20E), initiates a reproductive program during which thousands of genes are differentially expressed. While 20E-mediated gene activation is well known, repressive action by this hormone remains poorly unde...

The microfluidic-based cancer-on-a-chip models work as a powerful tool to study the tumor microenvironment and its role in metastasis. The models recapitulate and systematically simplify the in vitro tumor microenvironment. This enables the study of a metastatic process in unprecedented detail. This review examines the development of cancer-on-a-ch...

Over the last 20 years, there has been an explosion of genomic data collected for disease association, functional analyses, and other large-scale discoveries. At the same time, there have been revolutions in cloud computing that enable computational and data science research, while making data accessible to anyone with a web browser and an internet...

In this study, we identified a novel pyrazole-based derivative (P3C) that displayed potent cytotoxicity against 27 human cancer cell lines derived from different tissue origins with 50% cytotoxic concentrations (CC50) in the low micromolar and nanomolar range, particularly in two triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) cell lines (from 0.25 to 0.49 µM...

Patients with prostate cancer (PCa) receiving docetaxel chemotherapy invariably develop chemoresistance. The transcription co-activator lens epithelium-derived growth factor p75 (LEDGF/p75), also known as DFS70 and PSIP1, is upregulated in several human cancers, including PCa and promotes resistance to docetaxel and other drugs. The C-terminal regi...

Filipino Americans show higher thyroid cancer recurrence rates compared to European Americans. Although they are likely to die of this malignancy, the molecular mechanism has not yet been determined. Recent studies demonstrated that small non-coding RNAs could be utilized to assess thyroid cancer prognosis in tumor models. The goal of this study is...

Chronic Chagas cardiomyopathy (CCC) is the most frequent and severe form of Chagas disease, a neglected tropical illness caused by the protozoan Trypanosoma cruzi , and the main cause of morbimortality from cardiovascular problems in endemic areas. Although efforts have been made to understand the signaling pathways and molecular mechanisms underly...

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most common cancer that contributes to cancer-related morbidity. However, the differential expression of genes in different phases of CRC is largely unknown. Moreover, very little is known about the role of stress-survival pathways in CRC. We sought to discover the hub genes and identify their roles in several k...

Every year, more than a million individuals are diagnosed with colorectal cancer (CRC) across the world. Certain lifestyle and genetic factors are known to drive the high incidence and mortality rates in some groups of individuals. The presence of enormous amounts of reactive oxygen species is implicated for the on-set and carcinogenesis, and oxida...

Arthropod-specific juvenile hormones control numerous essential functions in development and reproduction. In the dengue-fever mosquito Aedes aegypti, in addition to its role in immature stages, juvenile hormone III (JH) governs post-eclosion (PE) development in adult females, a phase required for competence acquisition for blood feeding and subseq...

Female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes infect more than 400 million people each year with dangerous viral pathogens including dengue, yellow fever, Zika and chikungunya. Progress in understanding the biology of mosquitoes and developing the tools to fight them has been slowed by the lack of a high-quality genome assembly. Here we combine diverse technolog...

Abstract Glucocorticoid receptor (GR) is emerging as a key driver of prostate cancer (PCa) progression and therapy resistance in the absence of androgen receptor (AR) signaling. Acting as a bypass mechanism, GR activates AR-regulated genes, although GR-target genes contributing to PCa therapy resistance remain to be identified. Emerging evidence al...

Patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) develop resistance to conventional therapies including docetaxel (DTX). Identifying molecular pathways underlying DTX resistance is critical for developing novel combinatorial therapies to prevent or reverse this resistance. To identify transcriptomic signatures associated with a...

The synthesis of vitellogenin and its uptake by maturing oocytes during egg maturation are essential for successful female reproduction. These events are regulated by the juvenile hormones and ecdysteroids, and the nutritional signaling pathway regulated by neuropeptides. Juvenile hormones act as gonadotropins, regulating vitellogenesis in most ins...

Background: Understanding how biological factors contribute to prostate cancer (PCa) health disparities requires mechanistic functional analysis of specific genes or pathways in pre-clinical cellular and animal models of this malignancy. The 22Rv1 human prostatic carcinoma cell line was originally derived from the parental CWR22R cell line. Althou...

The yellow fever mosquito Aedes aegypti is the major vector of arboviruses, causing numerous devastating human diseases, such as dengue and yellow fevers, Chikungunya and Zika. Female mosquitoes need vertebrate blood for egg development, and repeated cycles of blood feeding are tightly linked to pathogen transmission. The mosquito's posterior midgu...

Details of the constructs for transgenesis. (A) Schematic representation of the driver CP-Gal4 cassette. (B) Schematic representation of the responder UAS-miR-275-TuD cassette. (C) Schematic representation of the miR-275-TuD RNA. (TIF)

Effect of gut-specific depletion of miR-275 in blood-fed A. aegypti female mosquitoes. (A) Female mosquito ovaries at 24 h PBM, and eggs (B) produced by multiple mosquito lines. These lines include wt, 16–1 Driver, F1 Responder, and CP-Gal4>UAS–miR-275-TuD lines (16-1/F1). Images of ovaries and eggs were captured from under the Leica M165FC stereom...

Schematic representation of the construct psiCHECK-2-SERCA and psiCHECK-2-ΔSERCA. (A) psiCHECK-2-SERCA contains 3’UTR from SERCA which includes a predicted miR-275 binding site. (B) In the psiCHECK-2-ΔSERCA construct, the predicted miR-275 binding site was mutated. (TIF)

Actin cytoskeleton was partially rescued in CP-Gal4>UAS-miR-275-TuD (16-1/F17) female mosquitoes after miR-275 mimic application. (Scale bar for gut actin staining: 0.2 mm (partial gut); scale bar for whole gut actin staining: 1 mm (whole gut). (TIF)

Application of SERCA-specific inhibitor TG and Notch signaling specific inhibitor DAPT resulted in phenotypes similar to CP-Gal4>UAS-miR-275-TuD (16-1/F1, 16-1/F17) female mosquitoes. (A) Phenotypes of mosquito guts, ovaries and eggs after TG or DAPT treatment. Photos of guts and ovaries were captured at 24 h PBM. Actin staining was performed at 24...

miR-275 target prediction in Ae. aegypti 3′ UTRs. (DOCX)

Confirmation of the CP-Gal4>UAS-miR-275-TuD hybrid transgenic mosquito lines. (A-D) Transgenic CP-Gal4/UAS–miR-275-TuD hybrids present both selectable markers. Pupae of mosquitoes were screened for the presence of EGFP and dsRed-selectable markers in the eye. Pupae were visualized under the Leica M165FC stereomicroscope, and images were obtained us...

miR-275 mimic rescues the phenotypes in blood-fed CP-Gal4>UAS–miR-275-TuD female mosquitoes. Female mosquito ovaries were sampled at 24 h PBM; eggs produced by multiple mosquito lines (Scale bar for eggs: 1 mm; scale bar for ovaries: 100 μm). (A) miR-275 mimic rescued the phenotype of reduced follicle size. (B) miR-275 mimic rescued the phenotype o...

miR-275 mimic rescues the phenotypes in blood-fed CP-Gal4>UAS–miR-275-TuD female mosquitoes (16-1/F17). Female mosquito guts and ovaries were sampled at 24 h PBM (Scale bar for guts and eggs: 1 mm; scale bar for ovaries: 100 μm). (TIF)

Partial sequence of the UAS-miR-275-TuD construct. (TIF)

Significance We report here that microRNA-309 (miR-309) plays a critical role in ovarian development of female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. The genetic disruption of miR-309 by CRISPR/Cas9 system displays a failure of ovarian primary follicle formation, and several pathways associated with ovarian development are down-regulated after miR-309 depletion...

Significance Juvenile hormone is unique to arthropods and controls numerous essential functions in these organisms. Its receptor, Methoprene-tolerant, turns on genes by directly binding to E-box–like motifs in their regulatory regions. However, how juvenile hormone represses genes has remained unclear. Here, we used the Aedes aegypti female mosquit...

OBJECTIVE: Methylation-specific epigenetic process and gene expression profiles of HeLa cells treated with ultra-high dilutions (HDs) of two plant extracts, Hydrastis canadensis (HC-30) and Marsdenia condurango (Condu-30), diluted 10 60 times, were analyzed against placebo 30C (Pl-30) for alterations in gene profiles linked to epigenetic modificati...

Females of the hematophagous mosquito species require a vertebrate blood meal to supply amino acids and other nutrients necessary for egg development, serving as the driving force for the spread of many vector-borne diseases in humans. Blood digestion utilizes both early and late phase serine proteases (SPs) that are differentially regulated at the...

OBJECTIVE: Methylation-specific epigenetic process and gene expression profiles of HeLa cells treated with ultra-high dilutions (HDs) of two plant extracts, Hydrastis canadensis (HC-30) and Marsdenia condurango (Condu-30), diluted 10 60 times, were analyzed against placebo 30C (Pl-30) for alterations in gene profiles linked to epigenetic modificati...

In multicellular organisms, development, growth and reproduction require coordinated expression of numerous functional and regulatory genes. Insects, in addition to being the most speciose animal group with enormous biological and economical significance, represent outstanding model organisms for studying regulation of synchronized gene expression...

Hematophagous mosquitoes serve as vectors of multiple devastating human diseases, and many unique physiological features contribute to the incredible evolutionary success of these insects. These functions place high-energy demands on a reproducing female mosquito, and carbohydrate metabolism (CM) must be synchronized with these needs. Functional an...

Significance Mosquitoes transmit some of the most devastating human diseases. Acquisition of blood initiates a cascade of events in various tissues in the female mosquito. Here we describe our study using newly established genetic tools in mosquito biology and a comprehensive microRNA target identification analysis to characterize microRNA-8 (miR-8...

Mosquitoes are potent vectors that transmit some of the world’s deadliest diseases due to their need for a blood meal to initiate egg development. A greater understanding of the molecular events surrounding mosquito reproduction will lead to more effective control strategies. The reproductive phase is mediated by Juvenile Hormone III (JH) and 20-hy...

Abstract Lineage-specific microRNAs (miRNAs) may contribute to functions specific to hematophagous mosquitoes and, as such, have potential for contributing to the development of future mosquito control approaches. Here we report that the mosquito- and gut-specific miRNA, miR-1174, is required for proper sugar absorption, fluid excretion, blood inta...

Significance Mosquitoes transmit some of the most dangerous human diseases. Microarray analysis of developmental gene dynamics in the female Aedes aegypti fat body has demonstrated that 6,146 genes are differentially expressed during juvenile hormone-dependent posteclosion development. These genes show striking temporal and functional separation. A...

Oligonucleotides employed in this study. (PDF)

Distribution of genes with different expression patterns within P. infestans supercontigs. Color-coding is the same as in Figure 2. (TIF)

Details of promoter motifs. (XLS)

Occurrence of motifs in promoters of potential secreted pathogenicity genes. (XLS)

Most eukaryotic pathogens have complex life cycles in which gene expression networks orchestrate the formation of cells specialized for dissemination or host colonization. In the oomycete Phytophthora infestans, the potato late blight pathogen, major shifts in mRNA profiles during developmental transitions were identified using microarrays. We used...

Background The core promoter is the region flanking the transcription start site (TSS) that directs formation of the pre-initiation complex. Core promoters have been studied intensively in mammals and yeast, but not in more diverse eukaryotes. Here we investigate core promoters in oomycetes, a group within the Stramenopile kingdom that includes imp...

PSPMs for the P. infestans motifs.

List of genes containing motifs associated with over-represented GO terms.

Comparison of oomycete and non-oomycete TATA-binding proteins, sequence logos of INR+FPR motif from different oomycetes, and correlation analysis of microarray and qRT-PCR data.

The peroxiredoxins (PRDXs) are emerging as regulators of antioxidant defense, apoptosis, and therapy resistance in cancer. Because their significance in prostate cancer (PCa) is unclear, we investigated their expression and clinical associations in PCa. Transcript expression of PRDX1-6 in PCa was evaluated in cancer gene microarray datasets, wherea...