Education

Ph.D. in Biochemistrey, University of Connecticut, Storrs, USA, 1990

Current position

Full Professor, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, USA (2010-present)

Publications (since 2005)

1. Achuthan, V. and DeStefano, J. J. (2015). Alternative divalent cations (Zn, Co, and Mn) are not mutagenic at conditions optimal for HIV-1 reverse transcriptase activity. BMC Biochem 16(1): 12.
   
2. Achuthan, V., Keith, B. J., Connolly, B. A. and DeStefano, J. J. (2014). Human immunodeficiency virus reverse transcriptase displays dramatically higher fidelity under physiological magnesium conditions in vitro. J Virol 88(15): 8514-8527.
   
3. Lieberman, O. J., DeStefano, J. J. and Lee, V. T. (2013). Detection of cyclic diguanylate G-octaplex assembly and interaction with proteins. PLoS One 8(1): e53689.
   
4. Nair, G. R., Dash, C., Le Grice, S. F. and DeStefano, J. J. (2012). Viral reverse transcriptases show selective high affinity binding to DNA-DNA primer-templates that resemble the polypurine tract. PLoS One 7(7): e41712.
   
5. Lai, Y. T. and DeStefano, J. J. (2012). DNA aptamers to human immunodeficiency virus reverse transcriptase selected by a primer-free SELEX method: characterization and comparison with other aptamers. Nucleic Acid Ther 22(3): 162-176.
   
6. Fenstermacher, K. J. and DeStefano, J. J. (2011). Mechanism of HIV reverse transcriptase inhibition by zinc: formation of a highly stable enzyme-(primer-template) complex with profoundly diminished catalytic activity. J Biol Chem 286(47): 40433-40442.
   
7. Lai, Y. T. and DeStefano, J. J. (2011). A primer-free method that selects high-affinity single-stranded DNA aptamers using thermostable RNA ligase. Anal Biochem 414(2): 246-253.
   
8. Gangaramani, D. R., Eden, E. L., Shah, M. and Destefano, J. J. (2010). The twenty-nine amino acid C-terminal cytoplasmic domain of poliovirus 3AB is critical for nucleic acid chaperone activity. RNA Biol 7(6): 820-829.
   
9. Olimpo, J. T. and DeStefano, J. J. (2010). Duplex structural differences and not 2'-hydroxyls explain the more stable binding of HIV-reverse transcriptase to RNA-DNA versus DNA-DNA. Nucleic Acids Res 38(13): 4426-4435.
   
10. DeStefano, J. J. (2010). Effect of reaction conditions and 3AB on the mutation rate of poliovirus RNA-dependent RNA polymerase in a alpha-complementation assay. Virus Res 147(1): 53-59.
    
11. Jacob, D. T. and DeStefano, J. J. (2008). A new role for HIV nucleocapsid protein in modulating the specificity of plus strand priming. Virology 378(2): 385-396.
    
12. DeStefano, J. J. and Nair, G. R. (2008). Novel aptamer inhibitors of human immunodeficiency virus reverse transcriptase. Oligonucleotides 18(2): 133-144.
    
13. Anthony, R. M. and Destefano, J. J. (2007). In vitro synthesis of long DNA products in reactions with HIV-RT and nucleocapsid protein. J Mol Biol 365(2): 310-324.
    
14. Baird, H. A., Gao, Y., Galetto, R., Lalonde, M., Anthony, R. M., Giacomoni, V., Abreha, M., Destefano, J. J., Negroni, M. and Arts, E. J. (2006). Influence of sequence identity and unique breakpoints on the frequency of intersubtype HIV-1 recombination. Retrovirology 3: 91.
    
15. Narayanan, N., Gorelick, R. J. and DeStefano, J. J. (2006). Structure/function mapping of amino acids in the N-terminal zinc finger of the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 nucleocapsid protein: residues responsible for nucleic acid helix destabilizing activity. Biochemistry 45(41): 12617-12628.
    
16. Bohlayer, W. P. and DeStefano, J. J. (2006). Tighter binding of HIV reverse transcriptase to RNA-DNA versus DNA-DNA results mostly from interactions in the polymerase domain and requires just a small stretch of RNA-DNA. Biochemistry 45(24): 7628-7638.
    
17. DeStefano, J. J. and Titilope, O. (2006). Poliovirus protein 3AB displays nucleic acid chaperone and helix-destabilizing activities. J Virol 80(4): 1662-1671.
    
18. DeStefano, J. J. and Cristofaro, J. V. (2006). Selection of primer-template sequences that bind human immunodeficiency virus reverse transcriptase with high affinity. Nucleic Acids Res 34(1): 130-139.
    
19. Heath, M. J. and Destefano, J. J. (2005). A complementary single-stranded docking site is required for enhancement of strand exchange by human immunodeficiency virus nucleocapsid protein on substrates that model viral recombination. Biochemistry 44(10): 3915-3925.