Research Interests

Regulation of transcription in eukaryotes, role of nuclear receptors and coregulators in epigenetic, regulation of chromatin in normal and diseased states.

Research Program

My research interests are focused on understanding molecular mechanisms by which nuclear receptors and receptor coregulators modulate histone modifications at local chromatin and thereby regulate transcription in normal and cancer cells. Our ongoing research highlights the importance of coregulators in maintainance of genomic stability and we are trying to understand the key mechanisms by which coregulator proteins/chromatin modifiers regulate the epigenetic state of chromatin to maintain or repress transcription of genes in normal and diseased states.

Selected Publications

• Dimple C, Nair SS, Rajhans R, Piteshwara PR, Liu J, Balasenthil S, Le XF, Burow ME, Auersperg N, Tekmal RR, Broaddus RR, Vadlamudi RK. Role of PELP1/MNAR signaling in ovarian tumorigenesis. Cancer Research 2008; 68: 4902-4909.
• Nair SS, Vadlamudi RK. Emerging significance of ER-coregulator PELP1/MNAR in cancer. Histology and Histopathology 2007; 22:91-96.
• Nair SS, Guo Z, Mueller JM, Koochekpour S, Qiu Y, Tekmal RR, Schule R, Kung HJ, Kumar R, Vadlamudi RK. PELP1/MNAR enhances androgen receptor functions through LIM-only coactivator FHL2. Molecular Endocrinology 2007; 21: 613-624.
• Manavathi B, Nair SS, Wang RA, Kumar R, Vadlamudi RK. Proline-, glutamic acid-, and leucine-rich protein-1 is essential in growth factor regulation of signal transducers and activators of transcription 3 activation. Cancer Res. 2005; 65: 5571-5577.
• Nair SS, Mishra SK, Yang Z, Balasenthil S, Kumar R, Vadlamudi RK. Potential role of a novel transcription coactivator PELP1 in histone H1 displacement in cancer cells. Cancer Research 2004; 64:6416-6423.
• Nair SS, Chaubal VA, Shioda T, Coser KR, Mojamdar M. Over-expression of MSG1 transcriptional coactivator increases melanin in B16 melanoma cells. A possible role for MSG1 in melanogenesis. Pigment Cell Research 2001; 14: 206-209.