
Basuthkar J Rao
Senior Professor
Mechanism of Genome Dynamics and Cellular Adaptations
Biochemistry, Cell and Molecular Biology, Computational Biology

The work focuses on understanding the molecular details underlying fundamental biological processes such as maintenance of genomic stability and replication stress arrest in mammalian cells as well as in Drosophila melanogaster. We also aim to decipher the cellular, physiological and metabolic adaptive processes in Chalmydomonas reinhardtii (a green algae). We employ molecular, cellular and organismal level approaches, combining with computational analyses, where required, and try to retrieve mechanisms in the context of cellular function and evolution.
Selected Publications
Chakraborty S, Mehta I, Kulashreshtha M, Rao BJ (2015) Quantitative analysis of chromosome localization in the nucleus. Methods in Molecular Biology 1228: 223
Chaudhari VR, Vyawahare A, Bhattacharjee SK, Rao BJ (2015) Enhanced excision repair and lack of PSII activity contribute to higher UV survival of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii cells in dark. Plant Physiology and Biochemistry 88: 60
Narayan S, Kombrabail MH, Das S, Singh H, Chary KV, Rao BJ, Krishnamoorthy G (2015) Site-specific fluorescence dynamics in an RNA 'thermometer' reveals the role of ribosome binding in its temperature-sensitive switch function. Nucleic Acids Research 43: 493
Tirumani S, Kokkanti M, Chaudhari V, Shukla M & Rao BJ (2014) Regulation of CCM genes in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii during conditions of light-dark cycles in synchronous cultures. Plant Molecular Biology 85: 277
Chakraborty S, Rao BJ, Asgeirsson B, Dandekar A (2014) Characterizing alpha helical properties of Ebola viral proteins as potential targets for inhibition of alpha-helix mediated protein-protein interactions. F1000 Research 3: 251
Gouran H, Chakraborty S, Rao BJ, Asgeirsson B, Dandekar A (2014) Directed evolution induces tributyrin hydrolysis in a virulence factor of Xylella fastidiosa using a duplicated gene as a template. F1000 Research 3: 215
Singh H, Shukla MR, Chary KV, Rao BJ (2014) Acetate and bicarbonate assimilation and metabolite formation in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii: a 13C-NMR study. PLOS ONE 9: e106457
Chaudhari V, Raghavan V, Rao BJ (2014) Preparation of efficient excision repair competent cell-free extracts from C. reinhardtii cells. PLOS ONE 9: e109160
Mehta IS, Kulashreshtha M, Chakraborty S, Kolthur-Seetharam U and Rao BJ (2013) Chromosome territories reposition during DNA damage-repair response. Genome Biology 14: R135
Chakraborty S, Venkatramani R, Rao BJ, Ágeirsson B, Dandekar AM (2013) Protein structure quality assessment based on the distance profiles of consecutive backbone Cα atoms F1000 Research 2: 211