Nancy Choudhary
Kirschallee1, 53115, Bonn, Germany
Room 2.044
Research overview
I am working on elucidating the biochemical pathways of Withanolide biosynthesis in Nightshade plants. Thereafter, I am particularly interested in studying the evolution of the withanolide biosynthesis genes and their structural diversification. For this, I use long-read sequencing to generate genome sequences. BLAST, synteny analysis, co-expression anlaysis and phylogenetic analysis among others are used to detect gene candidates. 'Data reuse' using publically available genomic and transcriptomic sequences and 'public sharing' is a big component of my work principles.
Qualifications
- April 2025 - Present: PhD student (continued), University of Bonn
- Sept 2023 - March 2025: PhD student, TU Braunschweig
- Aug 2021 - June 2023: M.Tech in Biotechnology, IIT Mandi, India
- Aug 2017 - June 2021: B.Tech in Biotechnology, Kurukshetra University, India
Publications (* = shared first authorship)
- de Oliveira, J. A. V. S.*; Choudhary, N.*; Meckoni, S. N.*; Nowak, M. S.; Hagedorn, M.; Pucker, B. Cookbook for Plant Genome Sequences. BMC Genomics (2026). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12864-026-12623-z
- Nancy Choudhary, Marie Hagedorn, Boas Pucker. Out of the blue: Family-wide loss of anthocyanin biosynthesis in Cucurbitaceae. bioRxiv (2025). https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.10.06.680802
- Najnin Khatun, Aidan Jones, Avery Rahe, Nancy Choudhary, Boas Pucker. Evolutionary Rewiring of Anthocyanin Biosynthesis Pathway in Poaceae. bioRxiv (2025). https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.09.21.677584
- Karbstein, K., Choudhary, N., Xie, T., Tomasello, S., Wagner, N.D., Barke, B.H., Paetzold, C., Bradican, J.P., Preick, M., Himmelbach, A., Stein, N., Papantonis, A., Irisarri, I., de Vries, J., Pucker, B. and Hörandl, E. Assembling genomes of non-model plants: A case study with evolutionary insights from Ranunculus (Ranunculaceae). The Plant Journal (2025).
https://doi.org/10.1111/tpj.70390 - Hakim S.E.*, Choudhary N.*, Malhotra K.*, Peng J.*, Arafa A., Bültemeier A., Friedhoff R., Bauer M., Witte C.-P., Herde M., Heretsch P., Pucker B., Franke J. Phylogenomics and metabolic engineering reveal a conserved gene cluster in Solanaceae plants for withanolide biosynthesis. Nature Communications (2025).
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-61686-1 - Recinos M. F. M., Winnier S., Lagerhausen K., Ajayi B., Wolff K., Friedhoff R., Dassow C. M., Choudhary N., & Pucker B. Cacao genome sequence reveals insights into the flavonoid biosynthesis. bioRxiv (2024). doi.org/10.1101/2024.11.23.624982
- Choudhary N, Pucker B. Conserved amino acid residues and gene expression patterns associated with the substrate preferences of the competing enzymes FLS and DFR. PLOS ONE (2024). 10.1371/journal.pone.0305837.
- Rempel A., Choudhary N. and Pucker B. KIPEs3: Automatic annotation of biosynthesis pathways. PLOS ONE (2023). 10.1371/journal.pone.0294342.
Scholarships and Awards
- DAAD-Kospie scholarship (Sept 2022 - March 2023)
- HTRA schlolarship (Aug 2021 - June 2023)
Conferences attended
PSSC 2025
Attended the Plant Science Student Conference (PSSC) 2025 at IPK, Gatersleben from 30th June to 2nd July 2025. Gave a talk about the withanolides work.
Botanik-Tagung 2024
Attended Botanik-Tagung: the International Conference of the German Society for Plant Sciences 2024 in Halle from September 15th to 19th, 2024. Showcased the discovery of a biosynthetic gene cluster for withanolide biosyntheis through a poster.
MBP 2024
Attended the Molecular Biology of plants (MBP2024) conference in Hennef, Germany, from March 4th to 7th, 2024. Presented my master's research through a poster