2009-2013
BS in Chemistry and Biology, University of Memphis, USA
2013-current
Ph. D. Student, Program in Biochemistry, Biophysics and Structural Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, USA
Research
Biochemistry of DNA replication across barriers
Publications
Sparks MA, Burgers PM, Galletto, R.
Pif1, RPA and FEN1 modulate the ability of DNA polymerase δ to overcome protein barriers during DNA synthesis
J. Biol. Chem. (2020) 295(47):15883-15891 doi: 10.1074/jbc.RA120.015699 PMID: 32913126
Sparks MA, Singh SP, Burgers PM, Galletto R.
Complementary roles of Pif1 helicase and single stranded DNA binding proteins in stimulating DNA replication through G-quadruplexes.
Nucleic Acids Res. 2019 Jul 24. pii: gkz608. doi:10.1093/nar/gkz608.
Dahan D, Tsirkas I, Dovrat D, Sparks MA, Singh SP, Galletto R, Aharoni A.
Pif1 is essential for efficient replisome progression through lagging strand G-quadruplex DNA secondary structures.
Nucleic Acids Res. 2018 Dec 14;46(22):11847-11857. doi:10.1093/nar/gky1065.
Zhang H, Liu H, Chen Y, Yang X, Wang P, Liu T, Deng M, Qin B, Correia C, Lee S, Kim J, Sparks MA, Nair AA, Evans DL, Kalari KR, Zhang P, Wang L, You Z, Kaufmann SH, Lou Z, Pei H.
A cell cycle-dependent BRCA1-UHRF1 cascade regulates DNA double-strand break repair pathway choice.
Nat Commun. 2016 Jan 5;7:10201. doi: 10.1038/ncomms10201.
Cheruiyot A, Paudyal SC, Kim IK, Sparks MA, Ellenberger T, Piwnica-Worms H, You Z.
Poly(ADP-ribose)-binding promotes Exo1 damage recruitment and suppresses its nuclease activities.
DNA Repair (Amst). 2015 Nov;35:106-15. doi:10.1016/j.dnarep.2015.09.021.
Chen X, Kim IK, Honaker Y, Paudyal SC, Koh WK, Sparks MA, Li S, Piwnica-Worms H, Ellenberger T, You Z.
14-3-3 proteins restrain the Exo1 nuclease to prevent overresection.
J Biol Chem. 2015 May 8;290(19):12300-12. doi: 10.1074/jbc.M115.644005.
Baker DL, Pham TC, Sparks MA.
Structure and catalytic function of sphingosine kinases: analysis by site-directed mutagenesis and enzyme kinetics.
Biochim Biophys Acta. 2013 Jan;1831(1):139-46. doi: 10.1016/j.bbalip.2012.09.006.