Krishna Singh, PhD

During Dr. Krishna Singh's PhD, he focused on understanding the impact of lysine acetylation on the Two Component Signaling system. His work revealed the autoregulatory activity of the TcrX protein, which is insensitive to phosphorylation but responds to acetylation (Singh KK et al., Journal of Molecular Biology, 2019; Singh KK et al., Bioprotocol, 2019). He also confirmed the effect of the metabolic product acetyl phosphate, showing that acetylated MtrA (by AcP) has enhanced interaction with SK MtrB, as determined by FRET (Singh KK et al., Frontier in Microbiology, 2021). Additionally, he conducted MMP2 membrane purification, which is a biomarker for various cancers (Singh KK et al., Journal of Molecular Biotechnology, 2014; Methods Mol. Bio., 2017). In Dr. Singh’s postdoctoral work in Dr. James Handa’s lab at Johns Hopkins University, the team is investigating the NRF2 signaling system to understand its role in age-related macular degeneration (AMD). They are examining how cigarette smoke, a significant environmental risk factor, induces epigenetic changes in the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE), leading to RPE heterogeneity. Through single-nucleus sequencing and ATAC sequencing, they aim to identify key transcriptional and epigenetic signals responsible for creating RPE heterogeneity and recognizing pathologic RPE subsets that drive AMD. Dr. Singh isalso studying how acetylation of NRF2 protein can restore impaired NRF2 signaling in the RPE and improve RPE function during chronic smoke exposure.