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There are two major research interests
in our laboratory:
Mechanisms of regulation of transcription. The primary interest
here is in understanding the mechanism of transcription initiation
by bacterial RNA polymerases (Fig. 1). We are interested in
determining what are the intermediates in initiation reaction,
what are the forces and interactions responsible for guiding
RNA polymerase through these intermediates, what is the nature
and the role of conformational changes in polymerase-promoter
DNA complex, and how regulatory proteins affect the interactions
and conformational changes in polymerase-DNA complex to modulate
the efficiency of transcription initiation. Additionally,
we are also involved in a collaborative project aimed at understanding
the mechanisms of transcription regulation by changes in chromatin
structure.
Figure 1: Transcription initiation by bacterial RNA
polymerase
Nucleic-acid based sensors. The primary interest here is
to develop highly specific and sensitive molecular sensors
capable of simultaneous recognition of the target molecule
and signaling of the presence of the target molecule by an
optical signal. Recently developed by us molecular beacons
for detecting DNA binding proteins (Fig. 2) provide a good
illustration of the overall concept. We use synthetic oligonucleotides
as building blocks of these sensors. We wish to develop such
sensors for variety of target proteins and also for various
small ligands. We are also interested in developing physical
models describing the behavior of these sensors and in developing
new ways of generating
and amplifying optical signals reporting the presence of the
target molecule.
Figure 2: Fluorescent molecular beacons for detecting
DNA-binding proteins
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