Tanaya Bose,

Senior Scientist
Structural Biology & Bioinformatics
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Research Focus

Structure of ribosomes, cryo-electron microscopy, prebiotic peptide bond formation by the proto-ribosome.

Research Interest

Welcome to our laboratory, where our research interest revolves around ribosomes, the macromolecular machines responsible for protein formation in the body. As ribosomes play an important role in the body, they are one of the major targets of many currently clinically used antibiotics. Ribosomal antibiotics paralyze the ribosomes by binding to them at well-conserved internal functional sites, mostly located at the ribosome core. However, misuse of antibiotics has rapidly created many resistant strains of the pathogens and therefore developing a new class of antibiotics to combat this issue needs special attention. In our laboratory, we plan to design a new class of nucleic acid-based antibiotics targeting them to the unique sites of each ribosome, thus aiming at a specific species and attempting to overcome antibiotic resistance.

Another area of interest of the lab is the evolution of ribosomes. The peptidyl transferase center of the ribosome, comprising mainly of RNA remains primarily conserved across all species of life. This hints towards this center being the point where the first peptide bond was formed on Earth. We aim to prove in the future that this region independently functioned as protoribosomes in the prebiotic world to form small peptides that later gained the capability of transporting the cognate protoribosome substrates evolved and the protoribosome acquired properties enabling the smooth translation of genetic information into proteins. This mechanism permitted faster and more robust evolution of useful polypeptides and proteins.

Credentials

  • Senior Scientist (September 2023-onwards), CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Biology (CSIR-IICB), Kolkata.
  • Research Associate (2022-September 2023) Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel.
  • Post-doctoral Research Fellow (2017-2022) Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel.
  • Ph.D (2017) CSIR-National Chemical Laboratory, Pune, India. 

Honours & Awards

  • Ramalingaswami Re-entry Fellowship, DBT-India, 2023.
  • Travel award for presenting my work at the “11th Bordeaux RNA Club Symposium” held on June 27-28, 2019, at Bordeaux, France.
  • Best Poster Prize in the area of Organic Chemistry on “National Science Day”, Pune.
  • CSIR-NET Fellowship by Govt. of India.

Patents & Publications

Publications:

  1. Structural studies reveal the role of helix 68 in the elongation step of protein biosynthesis. By Giuseppe Cimicata, Gil Fridkin, Tanaya Bose, Zohar Eyal, Yehuda Halfon, Elinor Breiner-Goldstein, Tara Fox, Ella Zimmerman, Anat Bashan, Natalia de Val, G, Alexander Wlodawer, and Ada Yonath, mBio, 2022, 13, 2, e00306-22.
  2. Origin of life: protoribosome forms peptide bonds and links RNA and protein dominated worlds. Tanaya Bose, Gil Fridkin, Chen Davidovich, Miri Krupkin, Nikita Dinger, Alla Falkovich, Yoav Peleg, Ilana Agmon, Anat Bashan, and Ada Yonath, Nucleic Acid Research, 2022, 50, 4,1815–1828. *Featured in:  How did life begin? One key ingredient is coming into view, Nature, 2023, 615, 22-25. *Highlighted   in   local   newspaper   in   Israel   called   Ynet. *Highlighted in Weizmann Wander wander. 
  3. Cryo-EM structure of the ancient eukaryotic ribosome from the human parasite Giardia lamblia. By Disha-Gajanan Hiregange, Andre Rivalta, Tanaya Bose, Elinor Breiner-Goldstein, Sarit Samiya, Giuseppe Cimicata, Liudmila Kulakova, Ella Zimmerman, Anat Bashan, Osnat Herzberg, and Ada Yonath, Nucleic Acid Research, 2022, 50, 3, 1770–1782.
  4. Origin of Life: Chiral Short RNA Chains Capable of Non-Enzymatic Peptide Bond Formation. By Tanaya Bose, Gil Fridkin, Anat Bashan, and Ada Yonath, Israel Journal of Chemistry, 2021, 61, 863–872. 
  5. Contemporary Challenges in Medical Usage of Antibiotics. Giuseppe Cimicata, Tanaya Bose, Gil Fridkin, André Rivalta, Moshe Peretz, Anat Bashan and Ada E. Yonath Pontificiae Academiae Scientiarvm Acta 25, J. von Braun, Sorondo, MS., ed. (Vatican City: Transformative Roles of Science in Society: From Emerging Basic Science Toward Solutions for People's Wellbeing), 2018, 97-101. 
  6. Critical role of select peptides in the loop region of G-rich PNA in the preferred G-quadruplex topology and stability. Tanaya Bose and Vaijayanti A. Kumar Tetrahedron, 2017, 73, 12, 1534-1540. 
  7. β,γ-bis-substituted PNA with configurational and conformational switch: Preferred binding to cDNA/RNA and cell-uptake. Tanaya Bose, Anjan Banerjee, Smita Nahar, Souvik Maiti and Vaijayanti A. Kumar Chemical Communications, 2015, 51, 36, 7693-7696. 
  8. Simple molecular engineering of glycol nucleic acid: Progression from self-pairing to cross-pairing with cDNA and RNA. Tanaya Bose and Vaijayanti A. Kumar, Bioorganic & medicinal chemistry, 2014, 22, 21, 6227-6232. 

 

Book Chapter

  1. Synthesis Protocols for Simple Uncharged Glycol Carbamate Nucleic Acids. Tanaya Bose and Vaijayanti A. Kumar, Non-Natural Nucleic Acids, 2019, Methods in Molecular Biology, Springer, 973, 91- 106. 
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