Meghna Gaikwad

Skilled Researcher enthusiastic about supporting advancements in Genomics. Passionate about increasing knowledge to develop probing questions, designing experiments and generating meaningful results. Organized and dependable candidate successful at managing multiple priorities with a positive attitude.

• Comparative genome analysis reveals key genetic factors associated with probiotic property in Enterococcus faecium strains, Ghattargi,V.C., Gaikwad, M.A.,Meti, B.S.,Nimonkar, Y.S.,Dixit, K., Prakash,O., Shouche, Y.S., Pawar, S.P. and Dhotre, D.P., BMC genomics, 2018, 19(1), p.652
• Genomic and physiological analyses of an indigenous strain, Enterococcus faecium 17OM39, Ghattargi, Vikas C., Yogesh S. Nimonkar, Shaunak A. Burse, Dimple Davray, Shreyas V. Kumbhare, Sudarshan A. Shetty, Meghana A. Gaikwad et al, Functional & integrative genomics, 2018, 1-15

• Ghatargi Vikas C, Gaikwad Meghna A. Comparative Genomics of Enterococcus faecium. Poster for Federation of European Microbiological Societies(FEMS), Valencia, Spain (2017)
• Ghatargi Vikas C, Gaikwad Meghna A. Genomic investigation of Probiotic and Non- Probiotic Species. Poster for Federation of European Microbiological Societies(FEMS), Valencia, Spain(2017)
• Gaikwad Meghna, Bruhns Torben, Sokolova Inna, Wegner Mathias, Labrenz Matthias. Influence of host-microbiome interactions on the physiology of the Pacific oyster in extreme habitats. Poster for VAAM Annual Conference 2022 of the Association for General and Applied Microbiology, Germany (2022)
• International Conference on Human, Animal, and Plant Mycoplasmas(December 03rd & 04th, 2019), National Centre for Cell Science, Pune.
• India First Workshop on the Taxonomy of Sponges (November 20th- 22nd, 2019), CSIR National Institute of Oceanography, Goa, India.
• International Conference On Microbiome Research (19th November 2018- 22nd November 2018), National Centre for Cell Science, Pune

• Dr. Shrikant Pawar,

General Manager (R&D) Serology & Microbiome,

Mylab Discovery Solutions Pvt. Ltd, Pune, India

pawar.shree@gmail.com

• Prof. Dr. Matthias Labrenz,

Biological Oceanography

Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research Warnemünde (IOW)

Seestrasse 15, 18119 Rostock-Warnemuende, Germany

matthias.labrenz@io-warnemuende.de

M.Sc. Dissertation project (December 2016-May 2017)

Title: Comparative Genome analysis of Enterococcus faecium strains

Comparative genomics of probiotic strain Enterococcus faecium 17OM39 with other probiotic, pathogenic, and non-pathogenic E. faecium strains was performed to investigate into several aspects related to probiotic, antibiotic resistance, and pathogenic features. Whole genome comparison revealed absence of pathogenic island in probiotic and non-pathogenic strains, moreover the genes related to antibiotic resistance and the virulence were absent in genome of 17OM39. The bile salt hydrolase and Exopolysaccharide biosynthesis gene cluster which impart probiotic properties were located on the genomic island of strain T110 and NRRL B- 2354 (probiotic and non-pathogenic strain)respectively. Hence suggesting they have acquired these properties but in case of strain 17OM39 no such probiotic properties were found to be associated with the mobilome. These results added to the inherent probiotic properties of our strain 17OM39.

Advisor: Dr. Shrikant Pawar

National Center for Microbial Resources-National Centre for Cell Science (NCMR-NCCS), Pune, India

Dr Dhiraj Dhotre

NCMR-NCCS, Pune, India

Additional project (December 2016-May 2017)

Title: Genomic investigation of Probiotic and Non-probiotic species

Details: The project involved inspection of Nine major probiotic Genera of bacteria that are being commercially used as probiotics (Lactobacillus, Lactococcus, Bifidobacterium, Enterococcus, Clostridium, Leuconostoc, Streptococcus, Escherichia). Only Whole genome sequences of the various strains of various species belonging to these nine genera were inspected for presence and absence of the standard set of genes imparting or enhancing the probiotic properties of the bacteria. Protein sequence of the genes imparting or enhancing the probiotic properties were used to perform a BLASTX analysis to find the presence and absence of genes in known probiotic as well as non-probiotic bacteria. As few Genera are also known to have pathogenic bacterial species, virulence factor and antibiotic resistance gene were also inspected. Further the sequences of these genes from the genome of the bacteria were extracted and based on the presence and absence of the genes as well as sequence similarity and dissimilarity between genes of probiotic and non-probiotic bacteria we were able to find the relation between the probiotic and the non-probiotic bacteria.

Advisor: Dr Dhiraj Dhotre

National Centre for Cell Science (NCCS), Pune, India

Academic Project (May 2014-April 2015)

Title: Determination of significant factors for Xylitol production using The Mangrove Yeast (Cyberlindnera saturnus)

Advisor: Dr. Ameeta Ravikumar

Institute of Bioinformatics and Biotechnology(IBB), Pune, India