Paul AgrisDirector, The RNA Institute
Professor, Department of Biological Sciences and Department of Chemistry
College of Arts and Sciences, SUNY Albany
Research Interests
We are interested in how RNA's chemistry and structure produces the functionally folded product. Of particular interest are the contributions of the 109 naturally occurring, posttranscriptional modifications. As with protein targets of disease intervention, an understanding of RNA's chemistry and structure is paramount to devising small molecule inhibitors of RNA function. More information on: SUNY Albany page
Selected Publications
Functional recognition of the modified human tRNALys3UUU anticodon domain by HIVs nucleocapsid protein and a peptide mimic (2011), W. D. Graham, L. Barley-Maloney, C. J. Stark, A. Kaur, K. S. Stolyarchuk, B. Sproat, G. Leszczynska, A. Malkiewicz, N. Safwat, P. Mucha, G. Guenther and P. F. Agris, J. Mol. Biol. (in press)
The human mitochondrial tRNAMet: Structure/function relationship of a unique modification in the decoding of unconventional codons. (2011), Y. Bilbille, E. M. Gustilo, K. A. Harris, C. N. Jones, H. Lusic, R. J. Kaiser, M. O. Delaney, L. L. Spremulli, A. Deiters and P. F. Agris, J. Mol. Biol., 406: 257-74. (more ...)
The RNA modification database, RNAMDB: 2011 update. (2011), W. A. Cantara, P. F. Crain, J. Rozenski, J. A. McCloskey, K. A. Harris, X. Zhang, F. A. P. Vendeix, D. Fabris and P. F. Agris, Nucleic Acid Res., 39, D195-201. (more ...)
Binding of aminoglycoside antibiotics to helix 69 of 23S rRNA (2010), A. E. Scheunemann, W. D. Graham, F. A. Vendeix, P. F. Agris, Nucleic Acid Res., 38, 3094-3105. (more ...)
Free energy calculation of modified base-pair formation in explicit solvent: A predictive model (2009), F. A. Vendeix, A. M. Munoz, P. F. Agris, RNA, 15, 2278-2287. (more ...)
Anticodon domain modifications contribute order to tRNA for ribosome-mediated codon binding (2008), F. A. P. Vendeix, W. D. Graham, A. Dziergowska, E. Gustilo, B. Sproat, A. Malkiewicz and P. F. Agris, Biochemistry, 47, 6117-6129. (more ...)
Bringing order to translation: Contributions of tRNA anticodon domain modifications (2008), P. F. Agris, EMBO Rep., 9, 629-635. (more ...)
The role of modifications in codon discrimination by tRNA(Lys)UUU (2004), F. V. Murphy 4th, V. Ramakrishnan, A. Malkiewicz, P. F. Agris, Nat. Struct. Mol. Biol., 11, 1186-1191. (more ...)
The Importance of being modified: Roles of modified nucleosides and Mg2+ in RNA structure and function (1996), P. F. Agris, Prog. Nucleic Acid Res. Mol. Biol., 53, 79-129. (more ...)
Lab Members with RNA-related projects
Dr. Caren J. Stark (Lab Manager)
Dr. Kun Lu (Research Associate)
Jessica Spears (Postdoctoral Fellow)
William A. Cantara (Graduate Student)
Kimberly A. Harris (Graduate Student)
Lauren Hakker (Graduate Student)
Jennifer Montimurro (Research Assistant)
Minhal Makshood (Undergraduate researcher)
Erick Harr (Undergraduate Researcher)