Profile
Obtained Ph.D. in the area of bacterial physiology working with the model organism Escherichia coli. My work highlighted a new function for transcription termination factors Rho and NusG. This involves the ability of these proteins to preclude the formation of DNA-RNA hybrid structures called the R-Loops. Subsequently, as a post-doctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Michael Cashel at the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, USA, with the aid of a synthetic-lethal genetic screen the physiological roles of the regulatory nucleotide analogues (p)ppGpp and a functionally associated protein factor DksA was interrogated. Work in my laboratory is aimed towards unravelling and understanding novel functions regulated by these molecules through genetic, molecular biology and microscopy approaches in the model bacterium Escherichia coli.
Current Focus Areas
Investigating the role of (p)ppGpp and DksA in, (i) Fatty acid Biosynthesis and Membrane Biogenesis; (ii) Transcription-Translation Coupling; (iii) Cell Division
Selected Publications
Sanyal R, Vimala A and Harinarayanan R (2020) Studies on the regulation of (p)ppGpp metabolism and its perturbation through the over-expression of Nudix Hydolases in Escherichia coli. Frontiers in Microbiology. 11:562804
Sanyal R and Harinarayanan R (2019). A novel gene contributing to the initiation of fatty acid biosynthesis in Escherichia coli. J. Bacteriol. 201: e00354-19
Vimala A, Harinarayanan R (2015). Tansketolase activity modulates glycerol-3-phosphate levels in Escherichia coli. Mol Microbiol. 100:263-77.
Nazir A, Harinarayanan R (2015). Inactivation of cell division protein FtsZ by SulA makes Lon indispensable for the viability of ppGpp0 strain of Escherichia coli. J Bacteriol. 198:688-700.
Gowrishankar J, Harinarayanan R (2004). Why is transcription coupled to translation in bacteria? Mol Microbiol. 54:598-603. Review