Academic Qualifications

1. Ph.D. (2001-2006): School of Biosciences and Bioengineering, IIT Bombay.
2. M.Sc. (1997-1999): (Organic Chemistry), Ravenshaw College, Cuttack

Academic positions

1. 2019 – till date: Scientist E, Inistitute of Life Sciences, Bhubaneswar.
2. 2015 – 2018: Scientist D, Inistitute of Life Sciences, Bhubaneswar.
3. 2011-2016: Ramalingaswami Fellow Scientist, Inistitute of Life Sciences, Bhubaneswar.
4. 2006-2011: Post-doctoral Fellow, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.

Academic Honors and Awards

1. 2011: Ramalingaswami fellowship from Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology, Govt. of India
2. 2004 – 2006: Awarded Senior Research Fellowship sponsored by CSIR, India.
3. 2002 – 2004: Awarded Junior Research Fellowship sponsored by CSIR, India.

Cell Division in Bacteria

Research Interest:

Increasing bacterial resistance to the existing antibiotics is emerging as one of the major challenge to human health. Cell division is an essential but a complex process in all the living organisms. Bacterial cell division has always been an attraction for the development of antibacterial agents. A greater understanding of bacteria cell division will be highly helpful for the discovery of novel antibacterial agents.

In E. coli cell division is performed by a coordinated assembly of more than a dozen of different proteins, which form a complex structure known as divisome. Assembly of divisome is initiated by the localization of FtsZ at the division site. FtsZ, a bacterial homolog of tubulin, is highly conserved among the prokaryotes. It polymerizes to form protofilaments and bundles that bind to the inner membrane with the help of membrane anchor proteins FtsA or ZipA, to form a ring like structure known as Z ring. The downstream proteins then get recruited to the Z ring in a hierarchy and make it dynamic structure, divisome. The final role of the divisome is to constrict the membrane and form a septum at the division site. Inhibition of the divisome leads to inhibition of the cell division and thus cell division has been considered as an attractive target for the development of antibacterial agents. We are interested to investigate the interactions among the cell division proteins and target these interactions for the discovery of novel antibacterial agents.

Publications:

1. Pattanayak BS, Dehury B, Priyadarshinee M, Jha S, Beuria TK, Soren D, Mallick BC. Kanamycin-Mediated Conformational Dynamics of Escherichia coli Outer Membrane Protein TolC. Front Mol Biosci. 2021 Apr 15;8:636286. doi: 10.3389/fmolb.2021.636286. PMID: 33937327; PMCID: PMC8083960.
2. Kumar S, Singh B, Kumari P, Kumar PV, Agnihotri G, Khan S, Beuria TK, Syed GH, Dixit A. Identification of multipotent drugs for COVID-19 therapeutics with the evaluation of their SARS-CoV2 inhibitory activity. Comput Struct Biotechnol J. 2021;19:1998-2017. doi: 10.1016/j.csbj.2021.04.014. Epub 2021 Apr 7. PMID: 33841751; PMCID: PMC8025584.
3. Vishwakarma P, Mitra S, Beuria T, Barik MR, Sahu SK. Comparative profile of ocular surface microbiome in vernal keratoconjunctivitis patients and healthy subjects. Graefes Arch Clin Exp Ophthalmol. 2021 Mar 2. doi: 10.1007/s00417-021-05109-z. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 33651203.
4. Mallick S, Kumar A, Dodia H, Alexander C, Vasudevan D, Beuria TK. Biochemical characterization of an E. coli cell division factor FtsE shows ATPase cycles similar to the NBDs of ABC-transporters. Biosci Rep. 2020 Dec 15:BSR20203034. doi: 10.1042/BSR20203034. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 33320186.
5. Raghav S, Ghosh A, Turuk J, et al. Analysis of Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomes Reveals Prevalence of D614G Mutation in Spike Protein Predicting an Increase in Interaction With TMPRSS2 and Virus Infectivity. Front Microbiol. 2020; 11:594928. PMCID: PMC7732478, doi:10.3389/fmicb.2020.594928
6. Alexander C, Guru A, Pradhan P, Mallick S, Mahanandia NC, Subudhi BB, Beuria TK*. MazEF-rifampicin interaction suggests a mechanism for rifampicin induced inhibition of persisters. BMC Mol Cell Biol. 2020 Oct 27;21(1):73. doi: 10.1186/s12860-020-00316-8. PMID: 33109090; PMCID: PMC7590665.
7. Taviti AC, Beuria TK*, Bacterial Min proteins beyond the cell division, Crit Rev Microbiol. 2018, 45(1):22-32, doi: 10.1080/1040841X.2018.1538932.
8. Taviti AC and Beuria TK*, MinD directly interacts with FtsZ at H10 helix suggests a model for robust activation of MinC to destabilize FtsZ polymers, Biochem J. Biochem J. 2017 Sep 7;474(18):3189-3205.
9. N Patra, AC Taviti, A Sahoo, A Pal, TK Beuria*, A Behera, S Patra. Green synthesis of multi-metallic nanocubes. RSC Advances 7 (56), 35111-35118, 2017. 2017
10. Panda P, Taviti AC, Satpati S, Kar MM, Dixit A*, Beuria TK*. Doxorubicin inhibits E. coli division by interacting at a novel site in FtsZ. Biochem J. 2015, 471(3):335-46.
11. Tripathy SK, Taviti AC, Dehury N, Sahoo A, Pal S, Beuria TK*, Patra S*. Synthesis, characterisation and antibacterial activity of [(p-cym)RuX(L)](+/2+) (X = Cl, H2O; L = bpmo, bpms) complexes. Dalton Trans. 2015, 44(11):5114-24.
12. Das JK, Mishra D, Ray P, Tripathy P, Beuria TK, Singh N, Suar M. In vitro evaluation of anti-infective activity of a Lactobacillus plantarum strain against Salmonella enterica serovar Enteritidis. Gut Pathog. 2013, 5(1):11.
13. Beuria, TK. and Margolin, W. Bacterial Cytokinesis: FzlA Frizzes FtsZ Filaments for Fission Force. Curr. Biol. 2010, 20:R1024-7.
14. Tonthat, N.K., Arold, S.T., Pickering, B., Van Dyke, M.W., Liang, S., Lu, Y., Beuria, TK., Margolin, W., and Schumacher, M.A. Molecular mechanism by which the SlmA nucleoid occlusion factor keeps cytokinesis in check. EMBO J. 2010, 30(1):154-64.
15. Beuria TK, Mullapudi S, Mileykovskaya E, Sadasivam M, Dowhan W and Margolin W. Adenine nucleotide-dependent regulation of assembly of bacterial tubulin-like FtsZ by a hypermorph of bacterial actin-like FtsA. J. Biol. Chem. 2009 284:14079-86.
16. Beuria TK, Singh P, Surolia A, and Panda D. Promoting assembly and bundling of FtsZ as a strategy to inhibit bacterial cell division: a new approach for developing novel antibacterial drugs. Biochem J. 2009 423(1):61-69.
17. Jaiswal R, Beuria TK, Mohan R, Mahajan SK, Panda D. Totarol inhibits bacterial cytokinesis by perturbing the assembly dynamics of FtsZ. Biochemistry 2007, 46: 4211-20.
18. Corbin BD, Wang Y, Beuria TK, Margolin W. Interaction between cell division proteins FtsE and FtsZ. J. Bacteriol. 2007, 189: 3026-35.
19. Beuria TK, Shah JH, Santra MK, Kumar V, Panda D. Effects of pH and ionic strength on the assembly and bundling of FtsZ protofilaments: a possible role of electrostatic interactions in the bundling of protofilaments. Int. J. Biol. Macromol. 2006, 40: 30-9.
20. Beuria TK, Santra MK, Panda D. Sanguinarine Blocks Cytokinesis in Bacteria by Inhibiting FtsZ Assembly and Bundling. Biochemistry 2005, 44: 16584-93.
21. Mukherjee A, Santra MK, Beuria TK, Panda D. A natural osmolyte trimethylamine N-oxide promotes assembly and bundling of the bacterial cell division protein, FtsZ and counteracts the denaturing effects of urea. FEBS J. 2005, 272: 2760-72.
22. Santra MK, Beuria TK, Banerjee A, Panda D. Ruthenium red-induced bundling of bacterial cell division protein, FtsZ. J Biol Chem. 2004, 279: 25959-65.
23. Beuria TK, Krishnakumar SS, Sahar S, Singh N, Gupta K, Meshram M, Panda D. Glutamate-induced assembly of bacterial cell division protein FtsZ. J Biol Chem. 2003, 278: 3735-41.

Current Lab Members:

Cyrus Alexander Senior Research Fellow cyrus.alexander2000 [at] gmail [dot] com	Sunanda Mallick Senior Research Fellow sunandabioscience [at] gmail [dot] com
Ankeeta Guru Inspire-Senior Research Fellow ankeeta.g [at] ils.res.in	Hiren Dodia UGC-Senior Research Fellow hiren.d [at] ils.res.in
Pikilata Pradhan UGC- Junior Research Fellow pinkilata[at] ils.res.in	Mitali Madhusmita Kar Lab Technician mitalimadhusmita256 [at] gmail [dot] com

Suvendu Ojha CSIR-Junior Research Fellow osuvendu[at]gmail.com

Past Lab Members:

T. Ashoka Chary Senior Research Fellow (UGC) ashokataviti [at] yahoo [dot] com

Ms. Deepika Jena JRF E-Mail: jena.deepika56 [at] gmail [dot] com

Anjali Sharma Junior Research Fellow biyani.anjali [at] gmail [dot] om

Pragnya Panda, PhD DBT-Research Associate E-mail: pragnyapanda05 [at] gmail [dot] com

Extramural Grants:

PhD position available: Interested candidates having CSIR-UGC JRF or any other fellowship may directly contact me.

Postdoc/ RA/ N-PDF: Candidates submitted their PhD thesis may directly contact me with their updated CV.