Gupta Lab

Dr. Gupta and staff

Yogesh K. Gupta, M. Tech, PhD

Rank: Assistant Professor
Department: Biochemistry & Structural Biology
Office: 4.100.08
Location: Greehey CCRI
Tel: 1.210.562.9064
guptay@uthscsa.edu

Gupta Lab Expertise:

  • Structural Biology
  • Epigenetic Mechanisms
  • Leukemia
  • Drug Discovery

Our studies seek to provide a complete and coherent picture of an emerging area of RNA epigenetics at the molecular and atomic levels. The final goal is to develop novel anticancer therapeutics targeting the human RNA methylome and other nucleoprotein assemblies. We employ leading-edge structural biology methods such as X-ray crystallography, NMR, cryo-EM in combination with an array of other biophysical and chemical biology tools, to elucidate structures and mechanisms of large nucleoprotein complexes central to normal homeostasis and childhood cancers.

Complex research image

UTHSA Faculty Profile: Yogesh Gupta,, PhD

Publications

Grants & Awards

Open positions

Lab Research

Research Program:

We are particularly interested in understanding the exact mechanisms by which different enzymes and accessory factors cross-talk, assemble, and install various covalent chemical modifications on coding and noncoding RNAs. N6-methyladenosine (m6A) is the most prevalent internal post-transcriptional modification in human mRNAs. The m6A associated complexes drive cellular transformation and sustained oncogenic translation in cancer. A complete structural elucidation of m6A sub-complexes would facilitate the designing of therapeutic strategies to target the dysregulated human RNA methylome in cancer selectively. We are also pursuing structural studies on selective RNA binding proteins that promote tumorigenesis in glioblastoma with a final goal to understand their basic mechanisms of action and structure-guided development of new therapies.

Childhood malignancies often display dysregulated transcription, defective DNA repair, elevated chromosomal instability, and aberrant RNA splicing programs, which are thought to be driven by chromosomal gene fusions that encode chimeric transcription factors. These fusion oncogenes act as network hubs to regulate diverse biological events in sarcoma cells. Thus, another area of interest in my laboratory is understanding the structural and mechanistic basis for the synergistic action of chimeric transcription factors and DNA repair enzymes that appear to cause disruptive cellular homeostasis in pediatric sarcomas. An atomic-level understanding of the mode of key molecular assemblies and their interplay will reveal yet unknown aspects of disease progression and greatly enhance our understanding of essential molecular partnerships in sarcoma pathogenesis and reveal new therapeutically exploitable vulnerabilities that can be targeted by novel small molecules.

Recent Publications:

Elife 2022 Jan 21;11:e67150

Nature Communications 2021 Jun 29;12(1):4020.

Nature Communications 2021 Jun 2;12(1):3287.

Genome Biol. 2020 Aug 6;21(1):195.

Nature Communications 2020 Jul 24;11(1):3718.

 

Teaching:

Molecules to Medicine (M2M) course to 1st-year medical students (number of students >200):

  • The central dogma
  • Clinical applications of DNA damage & repair
  • RNA transcription and clinical applications
  • Nucleotide metabolism and clinical applications

 Digestive Health and Nutrition (DHN) course to 1st-year medical students (number of students >200):

  • Biochemistry of digestion: Stomach
  • Biochemistry of digestion: Pancreas
  • Metabolic liver diseases

Forms and function (F&F) course to 2nd-year medical students (number of students >200):

  • Molecular basis of hyperuricemia and gout

BIOC6010 (instructor) & BIOC6036 (course director) courses to PhD students (number of students: 5-15):

  • DNA conformation and topology
  • Protein-nucleic acid interactions; Structural biology of genome editing
  • Epigenetics: Histone, DNA, and RNA modifications
  • RNA processing, translation, and RNA biology

Recruitment

The Gupta lab accepts requests from PhD students from IBMS and BME programs interested in rotating in the lab.

Please email your CV to Dr. Gupta (guptay@uthscsa.edu).

Lab Staff

Shailee Arya
Research Associate – Senior

Jyoti Baranwal, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow

Faisal Tarique Khaja, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow

Anurag Misra, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow

Manish Parihar, PhD
Research Scientist

Rahisuddin, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow

Shan Qi
Graduate Research Assistant

Carmen Villalobos, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow

Featured News

eLife: RNA ‘heroes’ can disarm bad-actor proteins in leukemia: study (Gupta)

Yogesh Gupta Awarded, 5-year $3.0 million R01 NIH/NIAID Grant to Support His SARS-CoV-2 and RNA Methylation Work.

Nature Communications: Structural basis of DNA synthesis opposite 8-oxoguanine by human PrimPol primase-polymerase (Gupta)

All news