Ghasem Hosseini SalekdehPh.D.

Department of Stem Cells and Developmental Biology

Professor

Email:

Phone: +98 21 23562512

CV:

About

Ghasem Hosseini Salekdeh in a Professor in Systems Biology at ‘Royan Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Technology’ and ‘Agricultural Biotechnology Research Institute of Iran’. He is also Honorary Professor of Macquarie University, Australia.

He is involved in several large-scale collaborative international including the Chromosome-Centric Human Proteome Project (C-HPP), a project organized by the Human Proteome Organization (HUPO). He serves as Chair of Human Y Chromosome Proteome Project (Y-HPP). He is also chair of the Asia Oceania Human Proteome Organization (AOHUPO) project on Human Embryonic Stem Cell Membrane since 2014. He is actively involved in national and international scientific societies. He is Co-founder of Iranian Proteomics Society (2004) and president of the society from 2004 till 2014. He is also an active council member of Asia Oceania Human Proteome Organization (AOHUPO) (2004 – present).

He is on the editorial board of several leading journals in the field such as Nature Scientific Reports, Journal of Proteome Research, and Proteomics.

He has published about 160 scientific papers with >11400 citations, h index 43 (Google scholar). He has published papers in the fields of proteomics and systems biology in top tier journals including Nature Biotechnology, Journal of Hepatology, Nature protocols, Trends in Plant Science, Nucleic Acids Research, Autophagy, Pharmacology & Therapeutics, Molecular Plant, Stem Cell reports, Molecular Therapy, Molecular and Cellular Proteomics, and Journal of Proteome Research.

He has been recognized as “top 1% of world scientists” in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology based on Thomson Reuters (ISI) reports (Oct 2015).

He has received several national scientific awards in last 10 years such as:

2018- Best Scientist (Rank #1) in Biotechnology award from National Biotechnology Committee
2016- Distinguished Scientist in Genetics awarded by Iranian Genetics Society for achievements in plant and stem cell research
2016- Best National Researcher Award from the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology
2013- Distinguished Scientist in Biotechnology award from Iranian Biotechnology Society for establishing and developing proteomics research in Iran
2010- Khwarizmi International Award for fundamental research for research achievement in the field of Agricultural Proteomics*
2010- Razi Medical Science award for advance technologies for research findings and publications in the field of stem cell proteomics*

Research interests

Identification of novel cell surface markers for cell therapy applications

Despite the progress in safety and efficacy of cell replacement therapy with pluripotent stem cells (PSCs), the presence of residual undifferentiated stem cells or proliferating progenitor cells with rostral identity remains a major challenge. Using a proteomics approach, we recently identify new set of cell surface markers on dopaminergic progenitor cells (CNTN2) and cardiac progenitor cells (ALCAM), which allow isolation of a more beneficial population for cell replacement therapy. Transplantation of human-PSC-derived purified CNTN2+ progenitors enhanced dopamine release from transplanted cells in the host brain and alleviated Parkinson’s disease-related phenotypes in animal models (Fathi et al. 2018, Molecular Cellular Proteomics). Transplantation of ALCAM+ progenitors enhances tissue recovery, restores cardiac function, and improves angiogenesis through activation of AKT-MAPK signaling in a rat model of myocardial infarction, based on cardiac MRI and histology (Ghazizadeh et al., .2018, Stem Cell Reports).

We are currently working on identification of novel cell surface markers of different progenitor cells for cell therapy applications.

Human Y Chromosome Proteome Project

We have developed the mid- and long-term research plant for the project (Jangravi et al., 2013) and attempted to identify several missing proteins of Y chromosome and their possible functions in male infertility (Ahmadi Rastegar et al., 2015), prostate cancer (Jangravi et al., 2015), neural differentiation (Vakilian et al., 2015) and cardiac differentiation of human embryonic stem cells (Meyfour et al., 2017).  We could also identify several novel isoforms of Y chromosome genes.

Recently, We conducted a deep subcellular proteomics analysis of hESCs to identify the nuclear, cytoplasmic, and membrane proteins in hESCs and to mine missing membrane proteins in the very early cell status. We generated the largest data set with confident identification of 11970 unique proteins including the most-comprehensive description of 6138 annotated membrane proteins in hESCs. Following the HPP guideline, we also identified 26 gold  and 87 silver missing proteins (Weldemariam et al., 2018). Our proteome map of hESCs may provide  a rich resource not only for the identification of MPs in the human proteome but  also for the investigation on self-renewal and differentiation of hESC.

We are now generating hESC lines in which Y chromosome genes are knocked-out or overexpressed. Due to the capacity of hESCs to differentiate to all lineages, this cell lines will allow us to analyze the function of Y chromosome genes during ectoderm, endoderm and mesoderm differentiation. A combined cellular, molecular and omics analysis of these cell lines during differentiate will give us valuable insight into the functional of Y chromosome genes at cellular levels in very important cells and pathways.

Recombinant protein

I have been using recombinant protein technology to produce growth factors required for hESC maintenance and differentiation leading to two spin-off companies: Royan Biotech, dedicated to growth factor production, and Royesh GeneAsa Teb, dedicated to generating cell lines producing pharmaceutical recombinant antibodies.

Group members

Current lab members:

Farzaneh Khani (PhD students)

Simin Nafian (PhD students)

Paria Pooyan (PhD students)

Hassan Rassouli (PhD students)

Mehdi Alikhani (Associate Researcher)

Shahab Mirshahvaladi (Associate Researcher)

Porya Parsa Matin (Assistant Researcher)

Previous students (current position):

Sara Taleahmad  (Postdoc, Royan Institute)

Razieh Karamzadeh (Postdoc, Royan Institute)

Anna Meyfour  (Assistant Professor, Shahid Beheshti Medical Univ, Iran)

Fatemehsaddat Amjadi (Assistant Professor, Iran Medical University)

Faezeh Shekari (Assistant Professor, Royan Institute)

Zahra Jangravi  (Assistant Professor, Baqiyatollah University of Medical Sciences)

Ali Fathi (Research Scientist, Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison)

Bahareh A. Mojarad (Research Fellow, The Hospital for Sick Children, Canada)

Vahid H. Gazestani (Postdoc, UC San Diego)

Diba A Rastegar (PhD student at  Sydney University, Australia)

Mahdieh Jadaliha (Postdoc, Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA

Farnaz Shamsi (Research Fellow, Joslin Diabetes Center, Harvard Medical School)

Faranak Fatahi  (Sandler Faculty Fellow, UCSF)

Maryam Yousefi (Postdoc, Stanford University)

Mona Khalaj (Postdoc, Stanford University)

Mahya Mehrmohammadi (Postdoct, Stanford University)

Leila Pirhaji (Postdoc, MIT)

Mohammadsharif Tabebordbar (Postdoc, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard)

Publications

The full list of publications can be found at:

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=7znfQ3IAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao

Selected Publications

*Corresponding or co-corresponding author

  1. Fathi A, Mirzaei M, Dolatyar B, Sharifitabar M, Bayat M, Shahbazi E, Lee J, Javan M, Zhang SC, Gupta V, Lee B, Haynes PA, Baharvand H, Salekdeh GH*. Discovery of Novel Cell Surface Markers for Purification of Embryonic Dopamine progenitors for Transplantation in Parkinson’s Disease Animal Models. Mol Cell Proteomics. 2018 17(9):1670-1684.
  2. Ghazizadeh Z, Fattahi F, Mirzaei M, Bayersaikhan D, Lee J, Chae S, Hwang D, Byun K, Tabar MS, Taleahmad S, Mirshahvaladi S, Shabani P, Fonoudi H, Haynes PA, Baharvand H, Aghdami N, Evans T, Lee B, Salekdeh GH*. Prospective Isolation of ISL1(+) Cardiac Progenitors from Human ESCs for Myocardial Infarction Therapy. Stem Cell Reports. 2018 Mar 13;10(3):848-859
  3. Weldemariam MM, Han CL, Shekari F, Kitata RB, Chuang CY, Hsu WT, Kuo HC, Choong WK, Sung TY, He FC, Chung MCM, Salekdeh GH*, Chen YJ. Subcellular Proteome Landscape of Human Embryonic Stem Cells Revealed Missing Membrane Proteins. J Proteome Res. 2018 Sep 24. doi: 10.1021/acs.jproteome.8b00407.
  4. Sabbagh U, Monavarfeshani A, Su K, Cole J, Carnival E, Su J, Moghaddam Z, Mirzaei M, Salekdeh GH*, & Fox MA. Distribution and development of molecularly distinct perineuronal nets in visual thalamus. Journal of Neurochemistry. 2018, 10.1111/jnc.14614.
  5. Chitranshi N, Dheer Y, Mirzaei M, Wu Y, Salekdeh GH,  Abbasi M, Gupta V, Vander Wall R, You Y, Graham SL, Gupta V. Loss of Shp2 Rescues BDNF/TrkB Signalling and Contributes to Improved Retinal 2 Ganglion Cells Neuroprotection. Molecular Therapy 2018 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ymthe.2018.09.019
  6. Paik YK, Lane L, Kawamura T, Chen YJ,; Cho JY, LaBaer J, Yoo JS, Domont G, Corrales F, Omenn G, Arcjakov A, Encarnación-Guevara S, Liu S, Salekdeh GH, Cho JY, Kim CY, Overall C. Launching the C-HPP pilot project for functional characterization of identified proteins with no known function. Journal of Proteome Research. 2018 doi: 10.1021/acs.jproteome.8b00383
  7. Moradi S, Sharifi-Zarchi A, Ahmadi A, Mollamohammadi S, Stubenvoll A, Günther S, Salekdeh GH, Asgari S, Braun T, Baharvand H. Small RNA Sequencing Reveals Dlk1-Dio3 Locus-Embedded MicroRNAs as Major Drivers of Ground-State Pluripotency. Stem Cell Reports. 2017 Dec 12;9(6):2081-2096.
  8. Meyfour A, Ansari H, Pahlavan S, Mirshahvaladi S, Rezaei-Tavirani M, Gourabi H, Baharvand H, Salekdeh GH*. Y Chromosome Missing Protein, TBL1Y, May Play an Important Role in Cardiac Differentiation. J Proteome Res. 2017 Dec 1;16(12):4391-4402.
  9. Byun K, Yoo Y, Son M, Lee J, Jeong GB, Park YM, Salekdeh GH*, Lee B. Advanced glycation end-products produced systemically and by macrophages: A common contributor to inflammation and degenerative diseases. Pharmacol Ther. 2017 Sep;177:44-55.
  10. Paez-Espino D, Chen IA, et al. IMG/VR: a database of cultured and uncultured DNA Viruses and retroviruses. Nucleic Acids Res. 2017 Jan 4;45(D1):D457-D465.
  11. Vakilian H, Mirzaei M, Sharifi Tabar M, Pooyan P, Habibi Rezaee L, Parker L, Haynes PA, Gourabi H, Baharvand H, Salekdeh GH*. DDX3Y, a Male-Specific Region of Y Chromosome Gene, May Modulate Neuronal Differentiation. J Proteome Res. 2015 Sep 4;14(9):3474-83.
  12. Jangravi Z, Tabar MS, Mirzaei M, Parsamatin P, Vakilian H, Alikhani M, Shabani M, Haynes PA, Goodchild AK, Gourabi H, Baharvand H, Salekdeh GH*. Two Splice Variants of Y Chromosome-Located Lysine-Specific Demethylase 5D Have Distinct Function in Prostate Cancer Cell Line (DU-145). J Proteome Res. 2015 Sep 4;14(9):3492-502.
  13. Amps K, Andrews PW, Anyfantis G, et al., Screening ethnically diverse human embryonic stem cells identifies a chromosome 20 minimal amplicon conferring growth advantage. Nat Biotechnol. 2011 29(12):1132-44.
  14. Legrain P, Aebersold R, et al. The human proteome project: Current state and future direction. Mol Cell Proteomics. 2011 10(7):M111.009993.
  15. Asgari S, Pournasr B, Salekdeh GH, Ghodsizadeh A, Ott M, Baharvand H. 2010. Induced pluripotent stem cells: a new era for hepatology. J Hepatol. 2010 53:738-51.
  16. Baharvand, H., Salekdeh, G.H., Taei, A., Mollamohammadi, S. 2010. An Efficient and Easy-to-Use Cryopreservation Protocol for Human ES and iPS Cells. Nature Protocols; 5: 588-94.