
Sarkarai Nadar, Ph.D.
Sarkarai Nadar joined HWCOM in 2012. His research aims to understand the mechanism of arsenic resistance and detoxification using biophysical methods and X-ray crystallography. He crystallized and solved the three-dimensional structure of ArsI, C-As lyase, a carbon arsenic bond cleaving enzyme from the thermophilic bacterium Thermomonospora curvata and Ars, Arsinothricin N-acetyltransferase from Pseudomonas putida KT2440. The focus of Nadar’s Ph.D. research was to design the DNA oligonucleotide sequences that form a four-way junction, characterize them using various biophysical methods, and find three-dimensional structures using X-ray crystallography.
Education
Ph.D., Crystallography and Biophysics, University of Madras, India
M.Sc, Physics, Alagappa University, India
BSc, Physics, Madurai Kamaraj University, India
Areas of interest/specialization
- Protein structures and the structure-function relationship of enzymes involved in arsenic biotransformation
- Anti-cancer drugs for Trible Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC) using computational methods and consecutive biophysical and biochemical assays
Selected Publications
- Chen J, Sarkarai Nadar V, and Rosen BP. (2020). Aquaglyceroporin AqpS from Sinorhizobium meliloti conducts both trivalent and pentavalent methylarsenicals. Chemosphere. 2020, doi.org/10.1016/j.chemosphere.2020.129379. Impact factor: 5.77.
- Nadar VS, Chen J, Dheeman DS, Galván AE, Yoshinaga-Sakurai K, Kandavelu P, Sankaran B, Kuramata M, Ishikawa S, Rosen BP, Yoshinaga M. Arsinothricin, an arsenic-containing non-proteinogenic amino acid analog of glutamate, is a broad-spectrum antibiotic. Commun Biol. 2019;2:131. doi: 10.1038/s42003-019-0365-y. eCollection 2019. PubMed PMID: 30993215; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC6465285. Impact factor 4.165.
- Chen J, Nadar VS, Rosen BP. A novel MAs(III)-selective ArsR transcriptional repressor. Mol Microbiol. 2017 Nov;106(3):469-478. doi: 10.1111/mmi.13826. Epub 2017 Sep 13. PubMed PMID: 28861914; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC5653410. Impact factor 3.418.
- Pawitwar SS, Nadar VS, Kandegedara A, Stemmler TL, Rosen BP, Yoshinaga M. Biochemical Characterization of ArsI: A Novel C-As Lyase for Degradation of Environmental Organoarsenicals. Environ Sci Technol. 2017 Oct 3;51(19):11115-11125. doi: 10.1021/acs.est.7b03180. Epub 2017 Sep 22. PubMed PMID: 28936873; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC5870903. Impact factor 7.864.
- Nadar VS, Yoshinaga M, Pawitwar SS, Kandavelu P, Sankaran B, Rosen BP. Structure of the ArsI C-As Lyase: Insights into the Mechanism of Degradation of Organoarsenical Herbicides and Growth Promoters. J Mol Biol. 2016 Jun 5;428(11):2462-2473. doi: 10.1016/j.jmb.2016.04.022. Epub 2016 Apr 20. PubMed PMID: 27107642; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4989922. Impact factor 4.760.
View all of Nadar's publications
Active Grants
Project: A potential novel arsenic-containing anti-cancer drug for triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC).
Sponsor: FIU-RCMI Pilot Program
Period: July 1, 2020 to June 30, 2021
Total Funding: $50,000