Dr. Tushar Kant Beuria

Academics

Degree	University/Institution
MSc. (Organic Chemistry)	Ravenshaw College, Cuttack
Ph.D.	School of Biosciences and Bioengineering, IIT Bombay.

Work Experience

Position	University/Organisation	Period
Scientist F	Inistitute of Life Sciences, Bhubaneswar	2024 - till date
Scientist E	Inistitute of Life Sciences, Bhubaneswar	2019 – 2023
Scientist D	Inistitute of Life Sciences, Bhubaneswar	2015 – 2018
Ramalingaswami Fellow Scientist	Inistitute of Life Sciences, Bhubaneswar	2011-2016
Post-doctoral Fellow	University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston	2006-2011

Awards & Recognisation

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

Research

Details
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.

Details

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

Details
Ojha S, Sinsinwar S, Chatterjee P, Biswal S, Pradhan P, Beuria TK. Efflux pump modulation by Montelukast and its roles in restoring antibiotic susceptibility in multidrug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. *EBioMedicine. 2025 Apr;114:105658. doi: 10.1016/j.ebiom.2025.105658. Epub 2025 Mar 28. PMID: 40157128; PMCID: PMC11994358. Pradhan P, Taviti AC, Beuria TK. The bacterial division protein MinDE has an independent function in flagellation. J Biol Chem. 2024 Apr;300(4):107117. doi: 10.1016/j.jbc.2024.107117. Epub 2024 Feb 23. PMID: 38403244; PMCID: PMC10963238. Guru A, Taviti AC, Sethy M, Ray S, Dixit A, Beuria TK. The cell division protein ZapE is targeted by the antibiotic aztreonam to induce cell filamentation in Escherichia coli. FEBS Lett.* 2023 Dec;597(23):2931-2945. doi: 10.1002/1873-3468.14759. Epub 2023 Nov 1. PMID: 37857499. Mallik S, Dodia H, Ghosh A, Srinivasan R, Good L, Raghav SK, Beuria TK. FtsE, the Nucleotide Binding Domain of the ABC Transporter Homolog FtsEX, Regulates Septal PG Synthesis in E. coli. *Microbiol Spectr. 2023 Apr 4:e0286322. doi: 10.1128/spectrum.02863-22. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 37014250. De S, Ghosh S, Keshry SS, Mahish C, Mohapatra C, Guru A, Mamidi P, Datey A, Pani SS, Vasudevan D, Beuria TK, Chattopadhyay S, Subudhi BB, Chattopadhyay S. MBZM-N-IBT, a Novel Small Molecule, Restricts Chikungunya Virus Infection by Targeting nsP2 Protease Activity In Vitro, In Vivo, and Ex Vivo. Antimicrob Agents Chemother. 2022 Jul 19;66(7):e0046322. doi: 10.1128/aac.00463-22. Epub 2022 Jun 29. PMID: 35766508; PMCID: PMC9295557. Prasad P, Mahapatra S, Mishra R, Murmu KC, Aggarwal S, Sethi M, Mohapatra P, Ghosh A, Yadav R, Dodia H, Ansari SA, De S, Singh D, Suryawanshi A, Dash R, Senapati S, Beuria TK, Chattopadhyay S, Syed GH, Swain R, Raghav SK, Parida A. Long-read 16S-seq reveals nasopharynx microbial dysbiosis and enrichment of Mycobacterium and Mycoplasma in COVID-19 patients: a potential source of co-infection. Mol Omics. 2022 Jul 11;18(6):490-505. doi: 10.1039/d2mo00044j. PMID: 35506682 Pradhan P, Margolin W, Beuria TK. Targeting the Achilles Heel of FtsZ: The Interdomain Cleft. Front Microbiol.* 2021 Sep 8;12:732796. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2021.732796. PMID: 34566937; PMCID: PMC8456036. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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 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. 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. 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. 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 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. 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. 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. Beuria, TK. and Margolin, W. Bacterial Cytokinesis: FzlA Frizzes FtsZ Filaments for Fission Force. Curr. Biol. 2010, 20:R1024-7. 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. 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. 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. 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. Corbin BD, Wang Y, Beuria TK, Margolin W. Interaction between cell division proteins FtsE and FtsZ. J. Bacteriol. 2007, 189: 3026-35. 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. Beuria TK, Santra MK, Panda D. Sanguinarine Blocks Cytokinesis in Bacteria by Inhibiting FtsZ Assembly and Bundling. Biochemistry 2005, 44: 16584-93. 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. 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. 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.

Details

Ojha S, Sinsinwar S, Chatterjee P, Biswal S, Pradhan P, Beuria TK. Efflux pump modulation by Montelukast and its roles in restoring antibiotic susceptibility in multidrug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. EBioMedicine. 2025 Apr;114:105658. doi: 10.1016/j.ebiom.2025.105658. Epub 2025 Mar 28. PMID: 40157128; PMCID: PMC11994358.
Pradhan P, Taviti AC, Beuria TK. The bacterial division protein MinDE has an independent function in flagellation. J Biol Chem. 2024 Apr;300(4):107117. doi: 10.1016/j.jbc.2024.107117. Epub 2024 Feb 23. PMID: 38403244; PMCID: PMC10963238.
Guru A, Taviti AC, Sethy M, Ray S, Dixit A, Beuria TK. The cell division protein ZapE is targeted by the antibiotic aztreonam to induce cell filamentation in Escherichia coli. FEBS Lett. 2023 Dec;597(23):2931-2945. doi: 10.1002/1873-3468.14759. Epub 2023 Nov 1. PMID: 37857499.
Mallik S, Dodia H, Ghosh A, Srinivasan R, Good L, Raghav SK, Beuria TK. FtsE, the Nucleotide Binding Domain of the ABC Transporter Homolog FtsEX, Regulates Septal PG Synthesis in E. coli. Microbiol Spectr. 2023 Apr 4:e0286322. doi: 10.1128/spectrum.02863-22. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 37014250.
De S, Ghosh S, Keshry SS, Mahish C, Mohapatra C, Guru A, Mamidi P, Datey A, Pani SS, Vasudevan D, Beuria TK, Chattopadhyay S, Subudhi BB, Chattopadhyay S. MBZM-N-IBT, a Novel Small Molecule, Restricts Chikungunya Virus Infection by Targeting nsP2 Protease Activity In Vitro, In Vivo, and Ex Vivo. Antimicrob Agents Chemother. 2022 Jul 19;66(7):e0046322. doi: 10.1128/aac.00463-22. Epub 2022 Jun 29. PMID: 35766508; PMCID: PMC9295557.
Prasad P, Mahapatra S, Mishra R, Murmu KC, Aggarwal S, Sethi M, Mohapatra P, Ghosh A, Yadav R, Dodia H, Ansari SA, De S, Singh D, Suryawanshi A, Dash R, Senapati S, Beuria TK, Chattopadhyay S, Syed GH, Swain R, Raghav SK, Parida A. Long-read 16S-seq reveals nasopharynx microbial dysbiosis and enrichment of Mycobacterium and Mycoplasma in COVID-19 patients: a potential source of co-infection. Mol Omics. 2022 Jul 11;18(6):490-505. doi: 10.1039/d2mo00044j. PMID: 35506682
Pradhan P, Margolin W, Beuria TK. Targeting the Achilles Heel of FtsZ: The Interdomain Cleft. Front Microbiol. 2021 Sep 8;12:732796. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2021.732796. PMID: 34566937; PMCID: PMC8456036.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
Beuria, TK. and Margolin, W. Bacterial Cytokinesis: FzlA Frizzes FtsZ Filaments for Fission Force. Curr. Biol. 2010, 20:R1024-7.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Corbin BD, Wang Y, Beuria TK, Margolin W. Interaction between cell division proteins FtsE and FtsZ. J. Bacteriol. 2007, 189: 3026-35.
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.
Beuria TK, Santra MK, Panda D. Sanguinarine Blocks Cytokinesis in Bacteria by Inhibiting FtsZ Assembly and Bundling. Biochemistry 2005, 44: 16584-93.
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.
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.
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.

Group

Details

	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 jena.deepika56 [at] gmail [dot] com
	Anjali Sharma Junior Research Fellow biyani.anjali [at] gmail [dot] om		Pragnya Panda, PhD DBT-Research Associate pragnyapanda05 [at] gmail [dot] com

Grants

Details

Extramural Grants:

Title of the Project	Funding Agency	Grant Period
Screening and identification of efflux pump inhibitors to combat antibacterial resistance in multi drug resistant S. aureus.	DST	2022-2025
To understand the role of FtsEX in coordinating the cell division with the membrane cleavage in E. coli.	DBT	2018 – 2021
To understand the oscillation mechanism of the Min system and its role in coordinating cell division with cell motility.	DST	2018 – 2021
Design, synthesis and biological evaluation of novel FtsZ inhibitors as potential anti tubercular agents	DBT	2013 -2016

Contacts

Email	Address	Fax	Office
tkbeuria@ils.res.in	Institute of Life Sciences, Nalco Square, Bhubaneswar-751023, India	0091 674 2300728	0091 674 23026400091 674 2300137/ 2301476 ext. 280

Highlights

Positions

Details
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.

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