Alicia K Byrd, PhD

Research Program: Cancer Biology Faculty Rank: Assistant Professor Campus: University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences College: College of Medicine Department: Biochemistry & Molecular Biology

Cancer Research Interest

• Disease Site Focus: Breast
• Research Focus Area: Treatment, Carcinogenesis
• Type of Research: Basic
• Research Interest Statement: My research is focused on understanding the fundamental mechanisms of a family of enzymes that regulate DNA repair. Misregulation of DNA repair, and these enzymes specifically, is associated with multiple types of cancer. The molecular mechanisms of these proteins, both individually and as components of multi-protein complexes, are of interest, as are the effects of posttranslational modifications on their activity. Increased understanding of the regulation of these DNA repair processes that are critical for maintaining genomic integrity could ultimately lead to the design of better cancer therapies.

Contact Information

• Email Address: AKBYRD@UAMS.EDU
• Profiles Research Networking Software: View Profile

Active Grants

• NIH/Nat. Inst. of General Medical Sciences – P20GM121293
  “Role of HELB in the Replication Stress Response Dr. Tacketts COBRA through ACRI”
  Principal Investigator
  7/1/2022 – 6/30/2027

Recent Publications

• He X, Yun MK, Li Z, [et al., including Byrd AK]. Structural and functional insights into the interaction between the bacteriophage T4 DNA processing proteins gp32 and Dda. Nucleic acids research. 2024 52(20):12748-12762. PMID: 39417586. PMCID: PMC11551737.
• Hong Z, Byrd AK, Gao J, [et al.]. Eukaryotic Pif1 helicase unwinds G-quadruplex and dsDNA using a conserved wedge. Nature communications. 2024 15(1):6104. PMID: 39030241. PMCID: PMC11275212.
• Gao J, Proffitt DR, Marecki JC, [et al., including Byrd AK]. Two residues in the DNA binding site of Pif1 helicase are essential for nuclear functions but dispensable for mitochondrial respiratory growth. Nucleic acids research. 2024. PMID: 38752483. PMCID: PMC11194084.
• Chib S, Griffin WC, Gao J, [et al., including Byrd AK]. Pif1 Helicase Mediates Remodeling of Protein-Nucleic Acid Complexes by Promoting Dissociation of Sub1 from G-Quadruplex DNA and Cdc13 from G-Rich Single-Stranded DNA. Biochemistry. 2023. PMID: 37948114. PMCID: PMC10841737.
• Belachew B, Gao J, Byrd AK, Raney KD. Hepatitis C virus nonstructural protein NS3 unfolds viral G-quadruplex RNA structures. The Journal of biological chemistry. 2022 298(11):102486. PMID: 36108740. PMCID: PMC9582721.
• Malone EG, Thompson MD, Byrd AK. Role and Regulation of Pif1 Family Helicases at the Replication Fork. International journal of molecular sciences. 2022 23(7). PMID: 35409096. PMCID: PMC8998199.
• Ozaslan D, Byrd AK, Belachew B, Raney KD. Alignment of helicases on single-stranded DNA increases activity. Methods in enzymology. 2022 672:29-54. PMID: 35934480. PMCID: PMC9421817.
• Thompson MD, Malone EG, Byrd AK. Monitoring helicase-catalyzed unwinding of multiple duplexes simultaneously. Methods in enzymology. 2022 672:1-27. PMID: 35934470. PMCID: PMC9397138.
• Byrd AK, Malone EG, Hazeslip L, [et al.]. A structural feature of Dda helicase which enhances displacement of streptavidin and trp repressor from DNA. Protein science : a publication of the Protein Society. 2021. PMID: 34761452. PMCID: PMC8819844.
• Gao J, Gao Z, Putnam AA, [et al., including Byrd AK]. G-quadruplex DNA inhibits unwinding activity but promotes liquid-liquid phase separation by the DEAD-box helicase Ded1p. Chemical communications (Cambridge, England). 2021. PMID: 34232232. PMCID: PMC8315639.
• Chappell K, Tackett A, Manna K, [et al., including Byrd AK]. Multi-omics data integration reveals correlated regulatory features of triple negative breast cancer. Molecular omics. 2021. PMID: 34142686. PMCID: PMC8504614.
• Marecki JC, Byrd AK, Raney KD. Identifying RNA Helicase Inhibitors Using Duplex Unwinding Assays. Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.). 2021 2209:53-72. PMID: 33201462. PMCID: PMC8862664.
• Edwards AD, Marecki JC, Byrd AK, [et al.]. G-Quadruplex loops regulate PARP-1 enzymatic activation. Nucleic acids research. 2020. PMID: 33313902. PMCID: PMC7797039.
• Graw S, Tang J, Zafar MK, [et al., including Byrd AK]. proteiNorm - A User-Friendly Tool for Normalization and Analysis of TMT and Label-Free Protein Quantification. ACS omega. 2020 5(40):25625-25633. PMID: 33073088. PMCID: PMC7557219.
• Zafar MK, Hazeslip L, Chauhan MZ, Byrd AK. The Expression of Human DNA Helicase B Is Affected by G-Quadruplexes in the Promoter. Biochemistry. 2020 59(26):2401-2409. PMID: 32478505. PMCID: PMC7346868.
• Butler TJ, Estep KN, Sommers JA, [et al., including Byrd AK]. Mitochondrial genetic variation is enriched in G-quadruplex regions that stall DNA synthesis in vitro. Human molecular genetics. 2020 29(8):1292-1309. PMID: 32191790. PMCID: PMC7254849.
• Hazeslip L, Zafar MK, Chauhan MZ, Byrd AK. Genome Maintenance by DNA Helicase B. Genes. 2020 11(5). PMID: 32455610. PMCID: PMC7290933.