I grew up in the Great White North (Toronto, Canada that is!).
I obtained my Hon. B. Sc. from the Department of Medical Genetics and Microbiology
and my M. Sc. and Ph. D. from the Department of Molecular and Medical Genetics at the
University of Toronto. For my graduate work, I studied the segregation mechanism of
the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) using mammalian systems as well as a S. cerevisiae EBV-
based plasmid segregation system that I developed. For my Post-Doctoral work, I wanted
to join a laboratory that closely worked with elucidating the mechanisms that lead to
aberrant gene regulation in human cancers. My search for such a laboratory brought
me to Atlanta, where I joined the Vertino Lab. As a Post-Doc, I am studying the
relationship between CpG island DNA hypermethylation and histone modifications in
the epigenetic silencing of tumor suppressor genes in human cancers. To do this,
I am using the model TMS1 gene, which is a pro-apoptotic gene that is normally
unmethylated at its promoter-associated CpG island and expressed but becomes
aberrantly methylated and silenced in several forms of cancer. Using a combination
of chromatin immunoprecipitation and siRNA techniques, I am determining the alterations
that occur in the histone modification patterns across the TMS1 locus as the locus
goes from an unmethylated to methylated state and the functional relevance of these
alterations in DNA methylation – associated gene silencing.
Education
B.S., Medical Genetics and Microbiology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada, 1999.
Ph.D., Molecular and Medical Genetics, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada, 2005.
Publications
Shire, K., Kapoor, P., Jiang, K., Hing, MN., Sivachandran, N., Nguyen, T. and Frappier L. 2006. Regulation of the EBNA1 Epstein-Barr virus protein by serine phosphorylation and arginine methylation. J. Virol., 80, 5261-5272.
Kapoor, P., Lavoie, B. and Frappier, L. 2005. EBP2 plays a key role in Epstein-Barr virus mitotic segregation and is regulated by Aurora family kinases. Mol. Cell. Biol., 25, 4934-4945.
Kapoor, P., and Frappier, L. (2004) Methods for Measuring the Replication and Segregation of Epstein-Barr Virus - Based Plasmids In: DNA Viruses - Methods and Protocols (Lieberman, P. M., ed), Humana Press, Philadelphia, PA.
Kapoor, P. and Frappier, L. 2003. EBNA1 partitions Epstein-Barr virus plasmids in yeast cells by attaching to human EBNA1-binding protein 2 on mitotic chromosomes. J. Virol., 77, 6946-6956.
Wu, H., Kapoor, P. and Frappier, L. 2002. Separation of the DNA replication, segregation and transcriptional activation functions of EBNA1. J. Virol., 76, 2480-2490.
Kapoor, P., Shire, K. and Frappier, L. 2001. Reconstitution of Epstein-Barr virus-based plasmid partitioning in budding yeast. EMBO J. 20, 222-230.
Contact Information
E-mail:pkapoor@emory.edu
Phone: (404) 778-2512
Fax: (404) 778-5530
