Research Interests

Our group focusses on understanding cell cycle regulatory mechanisms underlying normal development and disease manifestation. For this we study genes (i) with mutations linked to microcephaly (small brain) and (ii) whose dysregulation/dysfunction is associated with neural cancers. We use state-of-the-art cell and molecular biology approaches in neural cancer /stem cells and brain organoids, to establish the spatio-temporal roles of such developmentally important proteins.

Selected Publications

Chavali PL, Stojic L, Gergely F. Neurodevelopmental protein Musashi-1 interacts with the Zika genome and promotes viral replication. Science. 2017; 357: 83-88.

Chavali S, Chavali PL, Chalancon G, de Groot NS, Gemayel R, Latysheva NS, Ing-Simmons E, Verstrepen KJ, Balaji S, Babu MM. Constraints and consequences of the emergence of amino acid repeats in eukaryotic proteins. Nature Structural & Molecular Biology. 2017; 24:765-777.

Chavali PL, Chandrasekaran G, Barr AR, Tatrai P, Taylor C, Papachristou EK, Woods CG, Chavali S, Gergely F. A CEP215-HSET complex links centrosomes with spindle poles and drives centrosome clustering in cancer. Nature Communications. 2016; 7: 11005.

Chavali PL, et al. TLX activates MMP-2, promotes self-renewal of tumor spheres in neuroblastoma and correlates with poor patient survival. Cell Death & Disease. 2014; 5: e1502.

McIntyre RE, Chavali PL, et al. Disruption of mouse Cenpj, a regulator of centriole biogenesis, phenocopies Seckel syndrome. PLoS Genetics. 2012; 8: e1003022.