Prof Rickie Patani

 

Rickie Patani (Programme Director)
PhD (Cambridge); MB BS (Imperial); MRCP (UK); FRCP (UK); FMedSci
Director, Neurobiology Research Programme, Life Sciences Institute,
National University of Singapore (NUS)
Professor, Departments of Medicine and Anatomy, NUS
Centre for Life Sciences, 28 Medical Drive #05-01T
Email: rickie.patani@nus.edu.sg
Website: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rickie-patani-27b89177/

Major Research Interests

  • Understanding the molecular mechanisms of human neurodegeneration
  • Elucidating the role of cellular autonomy in human neurodegeneration
  • The biology of RNA processing, particularly intron retention, in health and disease

    • Recent Publications

    1. Hall CE, Yao Z, Choi M, Tyzack GE, Serio A, Luisier R, Harley J, Preza E, Arber C, Crisp SJ, Watson PMD, Kullmann DM, Abramov AY, Wray S, Burley R, Loh SHY, Martins LM, Stevens MM, Luscombe NM, Sibley C, Lakatos A, Ule J, Gandhi S, Patani R. ‘Progressive motor neuron pathology and the role of astrocytes in a human stem cell model of VCP-related ALS’. Cell Reports 2017 May 30;19(9):1739-1749. 63.
    2. Luisier R, Tyzack GE, Hall CE, Mitchell JS, Devine H, Taha DM, Malik B, Meyer I, Greensmith L, Newcombe J, Ule J, Luscombe NM, Patani R. Intron retention and nuclear loss of SFPQ are molecular hallmarks of ALS. Nature Communications. 2018 May 22;9(1):2010.
    3. Tyzack GE, Luisier R, Taha DM, Neeves J, Modic M, Mitchell JS, Meyer I, Greensmith L, Newcombe J, Ule J, Luscombe NM, Patani R. Widespread FUS mislocalization is a molecular hallmark of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Brain. 2019 Sep 1;142(9):2572-2580. doi: 10.1093/brain/awz217.
    4. Patani R. Human stem cell models of disease and the prognosis of academic medicine. Nature Medicine. 2020 Apr;26(4):449. doi: 10.1038/s41591-020-0814-7.
    5. Tyzack GE, Neeves J, Crerar H, Klein P, Ziff O, Taha DM, Luisier R, Luscombe NM, Patani R. Aberrant cytoplasmic intron retention is a blueprint for RNA binding protein mislocalization in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Brain. 2021 Mar 9:awab078. doi: 10.1093/brain/awab078.
    6. Smethurst P, Risse E, Tyzack G, Mitchell JS, Taha DM, Chen Y, Newcombe J, Collinge, Sidle K, Patani R. Distinct responses of neurons and astrocytes to TDP-43 proteinopathy in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Brain. 2020 Feb 1;143(2):430-440. doi: 10.1093/brain/awz419.
    7. Ziff OJ, Clarke BE, Taha DM, Crerar H, Luscombe NM, Patani R. Meta-analysis of human and mouse ALS astrocytes reveals multi-omic signatures of inflammatory reactive states. Genome Research. 2022 Jan;32(1):71-84. doi: 10.1101/gr.275939.121.
    8. Taha DM, Clarke BE, Hall CE, Tyzack GE, Ziff OJ, Greensmith L, Kalmar B, Ahmed M, Alam A, Thelin EP, Garcia N, Helmy A, Sibley CR, Patani R. Diversity of early astrocyte reactive profiles in familial amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Brain 2022 Jan 19:awab328. doi: 10.1093/brain/awab328.
    9. Ziff OJ, Neeves J, Mitchell J, Tyzack GE, NeuroLINCS consortium, AnswerALS consortium, Martinez Ruiz C, McGranahan N, Luisier R, Chakrabarti AM, Boulton SJ, Kelly G, Humphrey J, Patani R. Integrated transcriptome landscape of ALS identifies genome instability linked to TDP-43 pathology. Nature Communications 2023 Apr 20;14(1):2176. doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-37630-6.
    10. Patani R, Hardingham GE, Liddelow SA. Functional roles of reactive astrocytes in neuroinflammation and neurodegeneration. Nature Reviews Neurology 2023 Jun 12. doi: 10.1038/s41582-023-00822-1.
    11. Ziff OJ, Harley J, Wang Y, Neeves J, Tyzack G, Ibrahim F, Skehel M, Chakrabarti AM, Kelly G, Patani R. Nucleocytoplasmic mRNA redistribution accompanies RNA binding protein mislocalisation in ALS motor neurons and is restored by VCP D2 ATPase inhibition. Neuron 2023 Oct 4;111(19):3011-3027.e7.
    12. Petrić Howe M, Patani R. Nonsense-mediated mRNA decay in neuronal physiology and neurodegeneration. Trends in Neurosciences 2023 Oct;46(10):879-892.
    13. Hung C, Patani R. Elevated 4R tau contributes to endolysosomal dysfunction and neurodegeneration in VCP-related frontotemporal dementia. Brain. 2023 Oct 26:awad370. doi: 10.1093/brain/awad370.
    14. Hung C, Fertan E, Livesey FJ, Klenerman D, Patani R. APP antisense oligonucleotides reduce Aβ aggregation and rescue endolysosome-autophagy dysfunction in Alzheimer’s disease models. Brain 2024 Jul 5;147(7):2325-2333. doi: 10.1093/brain/awae092.
    15. Clarke BE, Ziff OJ, Tyzack G, Petrić Howe M, Wang Y, Klein P, Smith CA, Hall CA, Helmy A, Howell M, Kelly G, Patani R. Human VCP mutant microglia display immune and lysosomal phenotypes independently of GPNMB. Molecular Neurodegeneration 2024 Nov 26;19(1):90. doi: 10.1186/s13024-024-00773-1.
    16. Balendra R, Sreedharan J, Hallegger M, Luisier R, Lashuel HA, Gregory JM, Patani R. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis caused by TARDBP mutations: from genetics to TDP-43 proteinopathy. Lancet Neurology. 2025 May;24(5):456-470. doi: 10.1016/S1474-4422(25)00109-7.
    17. Hung C, Llorian M, Pal K, Livesey FJ, Choudhary J, Roumeliotis TI, Patani R. Mislocalization of nucleic acids is a convergent and targetable mechanism in Alzheimer’s disease and frontotemporal dementia. Cell Reports 2025 Jul 22;44(7):115867. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2025.115867.
    18. Neeves J, Petrić Howe M, Ziff OJ, Callaghan B, Jutzi D, Pal K, Roumeliotis TI, Choudhary J, Isaacs AM, Rigo F, Bennett CF, Ruepp MD, Patani R. An alternative cytoplasmic SFPQ isoform with reduced phase separation potential is upregulated in ALS. Science Advances (in press)