Dr. Rajendra P. Roy
Research Interest:
Summary of Research:Our laboratory is engaged in researches at the interface of chemistry and biology. We are interested in developing chemoenzymatic strategies for semisynthesis of proteins and bio-conjugates by combining enzymatic peptide ligation with chemical peptide synthesis, organic synthesis and recombinant protein expression.
Key words: Chemical biology, Synthetic protein chemistry, Peptide ligation, Protein engineering, Sortase
In the past we have addressed mechanistic aspects of peptide ligation reactions catalyzed by proteases. We have elaborated the concept of product-specific traps as a mechanism to facilitate reverse proteolytic condensation of polypeptide fragments. Furthermore, we have established volume exclusion effect, emanating from macromolecular crowding or confinement, as a driving force for reverse proteolysis.
Current work in our laboratory is focused on elucidating the amide bond forming specificity of bacterial transpeptidase (referred to as sortases). Sortases are cysteine transpeptidases that anchor surface proteins to the cell wall in Gram-positive bacteria. The archetypal sortase (SrtA) of Staphylococcus aureus recognizes a pentapeptide LPXTG motif present near the carboxy terminus of surface proteins, cleaves the T-G peptide bond and ligates the Protein-LPXT to the aminoglycine of the pentaglycine sequence present in peptidoglycan leading to anchoring of proteins to the cell wall.
SrtA-mediated peptide ligation reaction also proceeds well with short LPXTG peptides and aminoglycine terminated sequences. The propensity of SrtA to recognize short consensus sequences has inspired the use of this enzyme as a versatile synthetic tool in protein chemistry and chemical biology. Several applications of SrtA including introduction of novel functionality (viz., fluorescent labels, lipids, GPI anchors etc) into proteins, generation of circular proteins and surface immobilization of proteins have emerged in the past 7-8 years. Contemporaneously, we have been engaged in exploring the utility of SrtA in the synthesis of glycoconjugates, cyclic peptides, branched peptide oligomers and multivalent protein dendrimers that are not amenable to synthesis by purely chemical or genetic means.
Group Members:
Vijay S Pawale, Prity Yadav, Avinash Kumar Singh, Shagun Shukla, Sumit Murmu
Vijay S Pawale, Prity Yadav, Avinash Kumar Singh, Shagun Shukla, Sumit Murmu
Awards:
• The J.C. Bose National Fellowship
• Fellow of Indian National Science Academy
• Fellow of National Academy of Sciences, India
• Fellow of The Indian Academy of Sciences
• Member of Guha Research Conference
• National Bioscience Award for Career Development (DBT, Govt of India)
• Biotechnology Overseas Associateship (DBT, Govt of India)
• Ella Fitzgerald Fellowship (New York Heart Association, USA)
Publications:
- Pawale VS, Yadav P and Roy RP (2018) Facile one-step assembly of bona fide SUMO conjugates by chemoenzymatic ligation. ChemBioChem 19: 1137-41.
- Das S, Pawale VS, Dadireddy V, Singh AK, Ramakumar S and Roy RP (2017) Structure and specificity of a new class of Ca2+ independent housekeeping sortase from Streptomyces avermitilis provides insights into its non-canonical substrate preference. J Biol Chem 292:7244-57.
- Biswas T, Pawale V, Choudhury D and Roy RP (2014) Sorting of LPXTG peptides by archetypal Sortase A. Biochemistry 53: 2515-24.
- Gupta K, Singh S, Gupta K, Khan N, Sehgal D, Haridas V and Roy RP (2012) A bioorthogonal Chemoenzymatic strategy for defined protein dendrimer assembly. ChemBioChem 13: 2489-94.
- Dasgupta S, Samantaray S, Sahal D and Roy RP (2011) Isopeptide ligation catalyzed by quintessential Sortase A. J Biol Chem 286: 23996-24006.
- Samantaray S, Marathe U, Dasgupta S, Nandicoori VK, Roy RP (2008) Peptide-sugar ligation catalyzed by transpeptidase Sortase. J Am Chem Soc 130: 2133-34.
- Banerjee S, Mirsamadi N, Sivaram MV, Gupta RB, Chaudhury D, Roy RP (2007) Modification of axial fibre contact residues impact sickle hemoglobin polymerization by perturbing a network of coupled interactions. Protein J 26: 445-455.
- Sudha R, Anantharaman L, Sivaram MV, Mirsamadi N, Choudhury D, Lohiya NK, Gupta RB, and Roy RP (2004) Linkage of interactions in sickle hemoglobin fiber assembly. J Biol Chem 279: 20018-27.
- Balajee SR and Roy RP (2002) Volume exclusion effect as a driving force for reverse proteolysis. J Biol Chem 277: 43252-61.
- Sivaram MV, Sudha R, Roy RP (2001) A role for a113 (GH1) amino acid residue in the polymerization of sickle hemoglobin. J Biol Chem 276: 18209-15.
- Kumaran S, Datta D, Roy RP (2000) An enigmatic peptide ligation reaction. Protein Science 9: 734-41.
- Kumaran S, Datta D, Roy RP (1997) Conformationally driven protease-catalyzed splicing of peptide segments. Protein Science 6: 2233-41.