NUS Medicine student is winner of the Chua Toh Hua Memorial Gold Medal for Academic Year 2011/2012
Published: 15 May 2012
Ms Sugunavathi d/o Sepramaniam graduated with a PhD in January 2012 from NUS Medicine under the main supervision of Professor Kandiah Jeyaseelan from the Department of Biochemistry. Her thesis was on “MicroRNAs as modulators of aquaporins”. The importance of aquaporins (AQPs) in physiological/pathophysiological conditions and the lack of suitable modulators of AOPs have been well established. This study attempts to identify natural modulators for AQPs and focuses its search on the widely prevalent endogenous regulators, microRNAs. The initial study explored for possible microRNA regulators for the two AQPs (AQP1 and 4) which are highly implicated in brain pathology. To understand the applicability of this discovery in therapeutics, the study was extended into in vivo stroke models1. A relatively new phenomenon of transcriptional modulation by microRNAs was also explored. This resulted in the identification of a novel microRNA that could regulate the transcription of an isoform of AQP4 which is important in cerebral ischemia2. Finally an attempt to identify microRNA based regulators for AQPs 2 and 9 (implicated in stroke associated risk co-morbidities such as kidney failure and diabetes) was also made. Overall, our study has provided evidence of microRNAs that could be developed as possible therapeutics in stroke.
1 Sepramaniam S., Armugam A., Lim KY., Karolina DS., Swaminathan P., Tan JR., Jeyaseelan K. (2010). Journal of Biological Chemistry. 285, 29223-30.
2 Sepramaniam S., Lim KY., Armugam A., Wintour, EM., Jeyaseelan K. (2012) Journal of Biological Chemistry. 287, 12006-15.
