Jain, Kanishk
Kanishk is in the Biochemistry, Molecular and Structural Biology graduate program. He joined the CMB training program in 2015. His research mentor is Dr. Steven Clarke. He received a B.S. degree in 2013 from the University of Virginia.
Mentor: Dr. Steven Clarke
Post-translational modifications such as arginine methylation are involved in the regulation of a host of important cellular pathways such as gene expression, splicing, cellular differentiation, and stem cell pluripotency and survival. Many studies have been done on how type I and type II protein arginine methyltransferases (PRMTs) affect levels of dimethylation in vivo. However, little is known about the structural features which allow PRMTs to methylate their substrates, how they acquire their specificity, and how PRMT7, the only type III PRMT, can only monomethylate arginine residues. My research is focused on using biochemical and biophysical tools to determine the roles of PRMT7 as a producer of a potentially unique methyl mark (monomethylarginine) and, on a broader scale, the role of arginine methylation in protein-protein interactions in the cell by studying effects of methylation between combinations of different PRMTs.
