Dindial Ramotar

Biography

Ph.D, McGill University, and post-doctoral training, Harvard University.  We have been funded since 1993 by MRC/CIHR, NCIC and NSERC and with fellowships from FRQS and a Career Scientist Award from the NCIC.  Our research focuses on two themes (i) DNA damage and repair, and (ii) the role of uptake transporters in causing resistance towards anticancer drugs. Together with my past and present dedicated team of graduate students, post-doctoral fellows and research assistants, we have published over 90 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters, and 138 meeting abstracts.  In addition, I have delivered over 60 invited lectures around the world and serving extensively on national and international panels for reviewing grants and awards. To date, I have graduated and personally trained 46 highly qualify personnel (22 awarded with M.Sc, 10 with Ph.D, 9 with post-doctoral training and 5 research assistants). There were also over 40 visiting professionals and undergraduates in my laboratory.  Some of my former trainees are tenured professors and others are heading various departments in pharmaceutical industries. We are fully equipped to conduct studies with various model systems such as yeast, C. elegans, mammalian cells and patient samples.

Team

• Nicolas Brosseau, Ph.D
• Rana Rizk, M.Sc
• Melodie Tekohuotetua, M.Sc
• Vijay Verma, Post-doctoral Fellow
• Tara Harihar, Research Tech

Theme

Our effort is to understand how cancer cells confer resistance to the anthracycline family of anticancer drugs, which act by damaging the DNA.  We are testing the possibility that defects in the uptake of anthracyclines into cancer cells lead to the drug resistance.

Research topics

• Role of uptake transporters in drug resistance
• DNA repair mechanisms.

Publications

1. Vongsamphanh, R., Fortier, P-K., and Ramotar, D.  (2001) Pir1p mediates translocation of the yeast Apn1p endonuclease into the mitochondria to maintain genomic stability.  Mol. Cell. Biol. 21:1647-1655.
2. Karumbati, A.S., Deshpande,R. A., Jilani, A.,  Vance, J.R., Ramotar, D., and Wilson, T.E. (2003). The role of yeast DNA 3’ phosphatase Tpp1 and Rad1/Rad10 endonuclease in processing spontaneous and induced base lesions.  J. Biol. Chem., 278:31434-31443.
3. Aouida, M., Pagé, N., Leduc, A., Peter, M., and Ramotar, D. (2004) A genome-wide screen in Saccharomyces cerevisiae reveals altered transport as a mechanism of resistance to the anticancer drug bleomycin.  Cancer Res., 64: 1102-1109.
4. Aouida, M., Leduc, A., Poulin, R., and Ramotar, D.  (2005)  Agp2 encodes the major permease for high affinity polyamine import in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.  J. Biol. Chem., 280:24267-24276.
5. Zhiqiang Wang*, Emily Ayoub*, Abdelghani Mazouzi*, Inga Grin, Alexander A. Ishchenko, Jinjiang Fan, Xiaoming Yang*, Taramatti Harihar*, Murat K. Saparbaev and Dindial Ramotar (2014).  Functional variants of human APE1 rescue the DNA repair defects of the yeast AP endonuclease/3′-diesterase-deficient strain.  DNA Repair (Amst). 2014 Aug 7;22C:53-66. doi: 10.1016/j.dnarep.2014.07.010. [Epub ahead of print].
6. Brosseau N*, Andreev E*, Ramotar D. (2015) Complementation of the Yeast Model System Reveals that Caenorhabditis elegans OCT-1 Is a Functional Transporter of Anthracyclines. PLoS One. 2015 Jul 15;10(7):e0133182. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0133182.
7. Emil Andreev*, Nicolas Brosseau*, Euridice Carmona, Anne-Marie Mes-Masson, and Dindial Ramotar (2016).  The human organic cation transporter OCT1 mediates high affinity uptake of the anticancer drug daunorubicin.  Sci Rep. 2016 Feb 10;6:20508. doi: 10.1038/srep20508.
8. Hassan Nassour*, Zhiqiang Wang*, Amine Saad, Arturo Papaluca*, Nicolas Brosseau*, El Bachir Affar, Moulay A. Alaoui-Jamali and Dindial Ramotar (2016)  Peroxiredoxin 1 interacts with and blocks the redox factor APE1 from activating interleukin-8 expression. Sci Rep. 2016 Jul 8;6:29389. doi: 10.1038/srep29389.
9. Arturo Papaluca and Ramotar, D.  (2016)  A novel approach using C. elegans DNA damage-induced apoptosis to characterize the dynamics of uptake transporters for therapeutic drug discoveries. Sci. Rep. 6, 36026; doi: 10.1038/srep36026. 
10. Simran Kaur, Zubaidah M. Ramdzan, Marie-Christine Guiot, Li Li, Lam Leduy, Dindial Ramotar, Siham Sabri, B. Abdulkarim, and Alain Nepveu. (2017) CUX1 Stimulates APE1 Enzymatic Activity and Increases the Resistance of Glioblastoma Cells to the Mono-Alkylating Agent, Temozolomide.  Neuro Oncology, Sept 26, 2017 doi: 10.1093/neuonc/nox178.PMID:29036362.

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