Ph.D.
Broad area of research- Cell and Molecular biology/Molecular genetics: Transcription, chromatin and gene regulation
Specific areas-
(1) TAF complexes and Mechanism of Transcription in Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Candida albicans;
(2) Gene regulation during Iron Homeostasis in Candida albicans
(3) Transcriptional Regulatory Network controlling Melanogenesis and pigment disorders using Mouse Melanoma cell lines
Teaching: 2001 - present; Research: 1994 - present
Mentor/Supervisor:
Ph.D. - 04 (current); 10 (awarded)
M.Sc. - 24 (awarded)
Elected Fellow, National Academy of Sciences, Allahabad, India
DBT-CREST Award, Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology, Govt. of India.
Full Member- American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Member- American Society for Microbiology
EMBL Travel Award, 9th Transcription and Chromatin Conference held at EMBL, Heidelberg, Germany
Fellows Award for Research Excellence, NIH, Bethesda, MD. (1998)
National Research Fellowship (NET-JRF), University Grants Commission/Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, New Delhi, India.
Adhoc Reviewer:
Journals: PLOS One, Molecular Microbiology, Molecular and Cellular Biology, Microbiology, Applied and Environmental Microbiology; and various Indian Journals.
Grants: DBT, DST, CSIR
Dr. Rajesh Gokhale, CSIR-Institute for Genomics and Integrative Biology, Delhi
Dr. Jerry Workman, Stowers Institute for Medical Research, Kansas City, MO, USA.
- Sinha I, Poonia P, Sawhney S, Natarajan K. (2017) Functional Specialization of Two Paralogous TAF12 Variants by Their Selective Association with SAGA and TFIID Transcriptional Regulatory Complexes. Journal of Biological Chemistry 292: 6047–6055.
- Saint, M*, Sawhney, S*, Sinha, I, Singh R.P., Thakur, A., Siddharthan, R. and Natarajan K. (2014). TAF9 C-terminal conserved region domain is required for SAGA and TFIID promoter occupancy to promote transcriptional activation. Molecular and cellular Biology 34(9): 1547-63. *equal contribution
- Natarajan, V.T., Ganju, P., Singh, A., Vijayan, V., Kirty, K., Yadav, S., Puntambekar, S., Bajaj, S., Dani, P., Kar, H.K., Gadgil, C.J., Natarajan, K., Rani, R. and Gokhale, R.S. (2014). IFN-g signaling maintains skin pigmentation homeostasis through regulation of melanosome Maturation. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (USA) 111:2301-2306.
- Singh, R.P., Prasad, H.K., Sinha, I., Agarwal, N. and Natarajan, K. (2011) Cap2-HAP Complex Is a Critical Transcriptional Regulator That Has Dual but Contrasting Roles in Regulation of Iron Homeostasis in Candida albicans. Journal of Biological Chemistry, 286, 25154-25170.
- Natarajan, K., Meyer, M.R., Jackson, B.M., Slade, D., Hinnebusch, A.G. and Marton, M.J. (2001). Transcriptional Profiling Shows that Gcn4p is a Master Regulator of Gene Expression During Amino Acid Starvation in Yeast. Molecular and Cellular Biology 21, 4347-4368.
- Sinha I, Poonia P, Sawhney S, Natarajan K. (2017) Functional Specialization of Two Paralogous TAF12 Variants by Their Selective Association with SAGA and TFIID Transcriptional Regulatory Complexes. Journal of Biological Chemistry 292: 6047–6055.
- Srivastav MK, Nair R, Natarajan K (2017) Iron Acquisition in the Pathobiology of Candida albicans. In: Prasad R, editor. Candida albicans: Cellular and Molecular Biology. Cham: Springer International Publishing. pp. 347-378.
- Priyadarshini Y., Natarajan, K. (2016) Reconfiguration of transcriptional control of lysine biosynthesis in Candida albicans involves a central role for the Gcn4 transcriptional activator. mSphere (ASM Press) 1: e00016-00015.
United States Patent# 5547870 entitled "Oxalate Decarboxylase" by Datta, A., Mehta, A. and Natarajan, K.