Harmit Singh Malik

This study engineered hMxA to restrict multiple human-adapted influenza viruses as effectively as mMx1 by combining nuclear relocalization and specific amino acid changes.

EZHIP, a PRC2 inhibitor, arose on the placental mammal X chromosome, evolves under positive selection in primates, and duplicated, including a testis-expressed primate paralog, EZHIP2, whose gorilla copy inhibits H3K27me3.

A rapidly evolving essential protamine suppresses sex-chromosome meiotic drive in Drosophila.

The paper investigates whether Cenp-C genes duplicated alongside Cid genes in the montium group of Drosophila, finding that most species retain only one Cenp-C gene despite multiple syntenic loci.

The paper defines the MxA-Thogotovirus nucleoprotein interface using structural modeling and experimental validation, revealing key residues involved in restriction and escape.

The paper maps mutational landscapes of HIV-1 Vif proteins to understand how they antagonize APOBEC3G, revealing strain-specific epistasis and structural flexibility.

The paper identifies previously unknown Scm3/HJURP orthologs in metazoans using remote homology, structural modeling, and functional genetics, revealing their conserved role in centromere function despite sequence divergence.

This study shows that an in-frame stop codon in alphaviruses helps evade innate immune defenses in both mosquito and vertebrate hosts.

This study identifies two distinct mechanisms of colistin resistance in P. aeruginosa driven by magnesium depletion, each with different fitness costs.

The paper investigates the role of the Drosophila maternal-effect gene ao in histone gene repression and finds that ao does not repress histone gene expression.

The paper investigates the evolutionary origin and structural role of the I domain in integrin proteins, showing it mimics ligands to enable activation and expand cellular communication.

The paper maps YFV interactomes in human and mosquito cells, identifies RBBP6 as a restriction factor, and reveals divergent host interaction strategies among flaviviruses.

The paper identifies strategies for MxA to overcome breadth-specificity tradeoffs in antiviral restriction by using heterozygous and generalist super-restrictor variants.

This study shows that the opal stop codon in alphaviruses optimizes protein production and processing at 37°C by balancing polymerase levels and RNA replication transitions.

The paper shows that indels, not just missense mutations, enable antiviral proteins like TRIM5 to evolve new functions against viruses.

The paper traces the evolutionary origins of Mx proteins, showing they predate the interferon system and are widespread across eukaryotes, including fungi, plants, and early-branching lineages.

This study identifies how RNF213 recognizes diverse pathogens through enzymatic amplification of cooperative recruitment.

The paper analyzes the evolutionary trajectories of domesticated metaviral capsid genes in mammals, revealing diverse outcomes and structural features of these genes.

The paper shows that evolutionarily dynamic ZAD-ZNF genes in Drosophila are more likely to be essential, with Nicknack being necessary for larval development despite its rapid evolution.

The paper shows that retrocopying generates new APOBEC3 antiviral proteins in primates, expanding their functional repertoire to counteract viral evolution.