Research Interests

The lab of Dr. Deshmukh explores the structural and molecular basis of evolutionary divergence in the noncoding RNA mediated gene silencing pathway across organisms. He utilizes state-of-the-art biomolecular NMR techniques coupled with molecular biology, biochemistry, and biophysics to elaborate on the structure and function of several important high molecular weight proteins and nucleic acids. His lab employs an innovative biomolecular NMR approach to study inter-domain orientations and dynamics in multi-domain proteins such as RDE-4, DRB4, and DRB2. The studies performed by his group deciphered the initiation of the non-coding RNA mediated gene regulation pathway in various species. His work revealed that the subtle differences in structure and dynamics in highly homologous proteins incite the evolutionary divergence in the RNAi pathway. His work distinctively helps to extend our understanding in one of the basic biological processes that have direct implications in infection, cancer, and development.
He was invited as a speaker at prestigious biomolecular NMR meetings such as ICMRBS, Dallas, USA (2014), APNMRS, Hong Kong (2015), ICMRBS, Kyoto, Japan (2016), Indo-German Workshop, Leipzig, Germany (2017), and APNMRS, Singapore (2019).

Selected Publications

Conformational plasticity in dsRNA binding domains drives functional divergence in RNA recognition
Debadutta Patra, Jaydeep Paul, Upasana Rai, Aravind P. S., and Mandar V. Deshmukh
Journal of the American Chemical Society, 2025. In Press, doi: 10.1021/jacs.5c02057.

The mechanism of DRB7.2:DRB4 mediated sequestering of endogenous inverted-repeat dsRNA precursors in plants.
Sneha Paturi, Debadutta Patra, Priti Chanda Behera, Ramdas Aute, Nilam Waghela, Priyadarshan Kinatukara, and Mandar V Deshmukh
eLife, 14:105762, 2025. Doi: 10.7554/eLife.105762

Crc of Pseudomonas syringae Lz4W utilizes the dominant RNA binding site for mutually exclusive interactions with Hfq:mRNA and CrcY/Z RNA
Rakhi Sharma, Jaydeep Paul, Sneha Paturi, Malay K. Ray, and Mandar V. Deshmukh
Journal of Magnetic Resonance Open, 10–11: 100047, 2022, doi: doi.org/10.1016/j.jmro.2022.100047.

DRB4 dsRBD1 drives dsRNA recognition in Arabidopsis thaliana tasi/siRNA pathway
C. Sai Chaitanya, Ramdas Aute, Upasana Rai, Mandar V. Deshmukh
Nucleic Acids Research, 45(14), 8551-8563, 2017.

Structure of RDE-4 dsRBDs and mutational studies provide insights in the dsRNA recognition in C. elegans RNAi.
C Sai Chaitanya and Mandar V Deshmukh
Biochemical Journal, 458 (1), 119-130, 2014.