Dr. Indumathi Mariappan completed her doctoral and post-doctoral research training at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Hyderabad from 2000-2008. During this period of graduate training, she examined the role of nuclear matrix proteins such as the A-type Lamins in regulating muscle differentiation and the signaling mechanisms that regulate muscle stem cell quiescence and reactivation. Subsequently in 2008, she joined the Stem Cell Biology Laboratory at the LV Prasad Eye Institute, Hyderabad, as a full-time Research Faculty and continued there until 2025, before joining BRIC-inStem, Bangalore.

Dr. Indumathi’s lab is involved in basic and translational research towards addressing the problems of retinal and corneal diseases using different sources of adult and pluripotent stem cells. Her group is currently exploring the applications of human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) and genome editing technologies to generate 3D corneal and retinal organoids and gene knockout transgenic models of zebrafish to understand ocular disease pathobiology and to develop cell and gene-based therapies for certain inherited eye diseases.

Dr. Indumathi’s lab at BRIC-inStem will focus on using human iPSCs and iPSC-derived organoids and tissue-specific cell types as in vitro models to understand different regulatory networks that orchestrate eye development and how this gets altered under different pathological conditions that affect the eye and light perception.

Key Publications:

Acharya S, Ansari AH, Das PK, Hirano S, Aich M, Rauthan R, Mahato S, Maddileti S, Sarkar S, Kumar M, Phutela R, Gulati S, Rahman A, Goel A, Afzal C, Paul D, Agrawal T, Pulimamidi VK, Jalali S, Nishimasu H, Mariappan I, Nureki O, Maiti S, Chakraborty D. Combination of engineered FnCas9 and extended gRNAs for PAM-flexible, robust and nucleobase specific editing and diagnostics. Nat Commun. 2024 Jun 28;15(1):5471.

Farnoodian M, Bose D, Khristov V, Susaimanickam PJ, Maddileti S, Mariappan I, Abu-Asab M, Campos M, Villasmil R, Wan Q, Maminishkis A, McGaughey D, Barone F, Gundry RL, Riordon DR, Boheler KR, Sharma R, Bharti K. Cell-autonomous lipid-handling defects in Stargardt iPSC-derived retinal pigment epithelium cells. Stem Cell Reports. 2022 Nov 8;17(11):2438-2450.

Mahato S, Agrawal T, Pidishetty D, Maddileti S, Pulimamidi VK, Mariappan I. Generation of retinal organoids from healthy and retinal disease-specific human-induced pluripotent stem cells. J Vis Exp. 2022 Dec 9:(190), e64509.

Susaimanickam PJ, Maddileti S, Pulimamidi VK, Boyinpally SR, Naik RR, Naik MN, Reddy GB, Sangwan VS, Mariappan I. Generating minicorneal organoids from human induced pluripotent stem cells.Development. 2017 Jul 1;144(13):2338-2351. 

Mariappan I, Maddileti S, Joseph P, Siamwala JH, Vauhini V. Enriched cultures of retinal cells from BJNhem20 human embryonic stem cell line of Indian origin. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci. 2015 Oct;56(11):6714-23.

Mariappan I, Kacham S, Purushotham J, Maddileti S, Siamwala J, Sangwan VS. Spatial distribution of niche and stem cells in ex vivo human limbal cultures. Stem Cells Transl Med. 2014 Nov;3(11):1331-41.

Brown KD, Low SP, Mariappan I, Abberton K, Short R, Zhang H, Maddileti S, Sangwan V, Steele D, Daniell M. Plasma polymer coated contact lenses for the culture and transfer of corneal epithelial cells in the treatment of limbal stem cell deficiency (LSCD). Tissue Eng Part A. 2014 Feb;20(3-4):646-55.

Deshpande P, Ramachandran C, Sefat F, Mariappan I, Johnson C, McKean R, Hannah M, Sangwan VS, Claeyssens F, Ryan AJ, MacNeil S. Simplifying corneal surface regeneration using a biodegradable synthetic membrane and limbal tissue explants. Biomaterials. 2013 Jul;34(21):5088-106.

Mariappan I, Maddileti S, Savy S, Tiwari S, Gaddipati S, Fatima A, Sangwan VS, Balasubramanian D and Vemuganti GK. In vitro culture and expansion of human limbal epithelial cells. Nat Protoc. 2010 Aug;5(8):1470-9.

Mariappan I, Gurung R, Thanumalayan S and Parnaik, VK. Identification of cyclin D3 as a new interaction partner of lamin A/C. Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 2007 Apr 20;355(4):981-5. 

Mariappan I, Parnaik VK. Sequestration of pRb by cyclin D3 causes intranuclear reorganization of lamin A/C during muscle cell differentiation. Mol Biol Cell. 2005 Apr;16(4):1948-60.

For full publication list, please check the link below.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/myncbi/m.indumathi.1/bibliography/public/