Biological and Life Sciences

Dr. Noopur Thakur has joined as an Assistant Professor at Division of Biological and Life Sciences, Ahmedabad University, Gujarat, India in June 2017. She did her M.Sc at the Dept. of Molecular and Human Genetics, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi and Ph.D in understanding the epigenetic regulation of the imprinted genes with the title " Long range Control of Gene Expression by Imprinted Control Regions During Development and Neoplasia " at the Dept. of Animal Development and Genetics, Uppsala University, Sweden. Following Ph.D, she worked as a postdoctoral fellow ( 2005-2010) at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, Uppsala, Sweden. As a postdoc she worked on the role of TGFbeta signaling in Prostate Cancer. We were the first ones to demonstrate how TGFbeta activates the non-canonical signaling pathway leading to apoptosis ( Nature cell Biology, 2008). Later joined as a Senior Researcher (2010-2015) at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, Uppsala, Sweden. She continued her work on TGFbeta Signaling and its role in Cancer. She had shown in her research how TGFbeta regulates various cellular functions and thus plays an important role in Cancer ( Nature Communication, 2011,Cell Cycle, 2014 and Science Signaling, 2017). Got a well reputed Swedish Cancer Fonden Grant for three years ( 2009-2012).
At Ahmedabad University, Dr. Noopur Thakur is focussed on the role of TGFbeta and other growth factors in maintaining the epigenetic state of the cells and the mechanism how it gets deregulated in the Cancer cells.

• Apoptotic Signaling
• Molecular Biology
• Epigenetics
• Cancer Biology

• Ankit Naik, Nidhi Dalpatraj, and Noopur Thakur. Comparative analysis of the occupancy of Histone H3 Lysine 4 methylation in the cells treated with TGFβ and Interferon Gamma.  Gene, 30 August 2023, 147601.

• Dalpatraj Nidhi, Ankit Naik, and Noopur Thakur. "Combination Treatment of a Phytochemical and a Histone Demethylase Inhibitor—A Novel Approach towards Targeting TGFβ-Induced EMT, Invasion, and Migration in Prostate Cancer." International Journal of Molecular Sciences 24.3 (2023): 1860.

• Dalpatraj Nidhi, Tak Jyoti, Naik Ankit, & Thakur Noopur. (2022). Hesperetin modulates TGFβ induced metastatic potential of prostate cancer cells by altering histone methylation marks. Advances in Cancer Biology-Metastasis, 6, 100077.

• Ankit Naik, Nidhi Dalpatraj, and Noopur Thakur. "Global Gene Expression Regulation Mediated by TGFβ Through H3K9me3 Mark." Cancer Informatics 21 (2022): 11769351221115135.

• Ankit Naik, Nidhi Dalpatraj, Noopur Thakur. Global Histone H3 Lysine 4 Trimethylation (H3K4me3) Landscape Changes in Response to TGFβ. Epigenetic Insights. 2021 Oct 12;14:25168657211051755. 

• Thakur N, Hamidi A, Song J, Itoh S, Bergh A, Heldin CH, et al. Smad7 Enhances TGF-β-Induced Transcription of c-Jun and HDAC6 Promoting Invasion of Prostate Cancer Cells. iScience. 2020 Sep 3;23(9):101470.
• Hamidi A, Song J, Thakur N, Itoh S, Marcusson A, Bergh A, et al. TGF-β promotes PI3K-AKT signaling and prostate cancer cell migration through the TRAF6-mediated ubiquitylation of p85α. Sci Signal. 2017 Jul 4;10(486)
• Thakur N, Gudey SK, Marcusson A, Fu JY, Bergh, et al. TGFβ-induced invasion of prostate cancer cells is promoted by c-Jun-dependent transcriptional activation of Snail1.Cell Cycle. 2014;13(15):2400-14.
• Ekman M, Mu Y, Lee SY, Edlund S, Kozakai T, Thakur N, Tran H, et al. APC and Smad7 link TGFβ type 1 receptors to microtubule system to promote cell migration. Mol Biol Cell 2012; 11: 2109-21
• Mu Y*, Sundar R*, Thakur N*, Ekman M*, Gudey SK, Yakymovych M, et al. TRAF6 ubiquitinates TGFβ type I receptor to promote its cleavage and nuclear translocation in cancer. Nat Commun 2011; 2:330. (*Shared first authors)
• Sorrentino A*, Thakur N*, Grimsby S*, Marcusson A, von Bulow V, Schuster N, et al. The type I TGFβ receptor engages TRAF6 to activate TAK1 in a receptor kinase-independent manner. Nat Cell  Biol 2008; 10:1199-207. (*Shared first authors)
• Zhang S*, Ekman M*, Thakur N*, Bu S, Davoodpour P, Grimsby S, et al. TGF-induced activation of ATM and p53 mediates apoptosis in a Smad7-dependent manner. Cell Cycle 2006; 5:2787-95. (*Shared first authors)
• Thakur N*, Tiwari VK*, Thomassin H, Pandey RR, Kanduri M, Gondor A, et al. An antisense RNA regulates the bidirectional silencing property of the Kcnq1 imprinting control region. Mol Cell Biol 2004; 24:7855-62. (*Shared first authors)
• Thakur N*, Kanduri M*, Holmgren C, Mukhopadhyay R, Kanduri C. Bidirectional silencing and DNA methylation-sensitive methylation-spreading properties of the Kcnq1 imprinting control region map to the same regions. J Biol Chem 2003; 278:9514-9. (*Shared first authors)
• Thakur N, Gudey SK, Marcusson A, Fu JY, Bergh A, Heldin CH, et al. TGFβ-induced invasion of prostate cancer cells is promoted by c-Jun-dependent transcriptional activation of Snail1. Cell Cycle 2014; 13
• Kanduri C, Thakur N, Pandey RR. The length of the transcript encoded from the Kcnq1ot1 antisense promoter determines the degree of silencing. EMBO J 2006; 25:2096-106.
• Ekman M, Mu Y, Lee SY, Edlund S, Kozakai T, Thakur N, et al. APC and Smad7 link TGFβ type I receptors to the microtubule system to promote cell migration. Mol Biol Cell 2012; 23:2109-21.
• Kanduri C, Kanduri M, Liu L, Thakur N, Pfeifer S, Ohlsson R. The kinetics of deregulation of expression by de novo methylation of the h19 imprinting control region in cancer cells. Cancer Res 2002; 62:4545-8.
• Lynn AM, Jain CK, Kosalai K, Barman P, Thakur N, Batra H, et al. An automated annotation tool for genomic DNA sequences using GeneScan and BLAST. J Genet 2001; 80:9-16.

Immunology, Cell biology, Biochemistry, Epigenetics and Foundation programme.

Marene Inga-Britt Landström, Yabing Mu, Reshma Sundar, Noopur Thakur, Shyam Kumar Gudey, Maria Ekman, Carl-Henrik, Heldin. Cleavage inhibitors of transforming factor beta type I receptor and uses thereof in cancer therapy. US20140140998, WO2012125623A2, WO2012125623A3.

1. Nidhi Jain (CSIR-NET):

Graduated PhD student (2023)

Nidhi’s PhD title is “Targeting TGFβ Induced Metastatic Potential of Prostate Cancer Cells Using Combinatorial Approach''. Nidhi got registered in my lab as a PhD student in 2019 and received her PhD degree in 2023.

1) Ankit Naik                                                                              

Doctoral Student and INSPIRE Fellow

2018-Present

M.Sc. Biotechnology from Nirma University, Ahmedabad, India

Ankit Naik is a doctoral candidate and a DST-INSPIRE Fellow in the Cancer Biology Lab at the Biological and Life Sciences division. His research interests lie in Cancer epigenetics, especially in the role of various histone modifications in dictating the process of tumorigenesis. Histone proteins and their post-translational changes at certain sites regulate processes such as gene expression and DNA repair, making them important participants in cancer and resistance mechanisms. With the use of Next-Generation Sequencing, Bioinformatic tools, and Molecular biology techniques, he is working towards understanding the crosstalk between TGFβ Signaling and different epigenetic modifications in cancer.

2) Sreelekshmi Pillai

Doctoral student

2022- Present

Her project is to understand the mechanism of the postive regulation of TGFβ Signaling by Smad7.

3) Harnish Patel

M.Sc. Dissertation Student

Winter Semester 2023.

4) Kanchi Parmar

M.Sc. Dissertation Student

Winter Semester 2023-Winter Semester 2024

5) Shagun

M.Sc. Dissertation Student

Winter Semester 2023-Winter Semester 2024

6) Anil Karthik Hazaru

M.Sc. Dissertation Student

Winter Semester 2023-Winter Semester 2024

Lab Alumni:

9) Dr. Jyoti Tak

Junior Research Fellow

2019-2021

8) Aakansha Singh

M.Sc Dissertation Student

January to May 2022

7) Shaily Patel

Undegraduate Project Student

August 2021 to May 2022

6) Riya Maini

Undegraduate Project Student

August 2021 to December 2021

5) Nehal Patel

Undergraduate Project Student

August 2021 to May 2022

4) Yash Shah

Undergraduate Project Student

January 2022 to May 2022

3) Mansi Ahuja

Undergraduate Project Student

August to December 2018.

2) Gausiya Kelawala

Undergraduate Project Student

August to December 2018.

1) Anviti Vashishtha

Undergraduate Project Student

August to December 2018.

2023

3) Nidhi D. -  Poster Presentation at "Genomics India Conference-2023", Feb 2nd -3rd 2023, NIMHANS Convention Centre, Bengaluru, India.

2) Ankit Naik - Oral Presentation at "45th All India Cell Biology Conference 2023 & International Symposium on Biology of Development and Disease - 2023", 20 - 22 January 2023, Organized by Department of Zoology, Institute of Science, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India.

1) Ankit Naik - Poster Presentation at "42nd Annual Conference of the Indian Association for Cancer Research", 12 - 16 Jaunuary, 2023, held at ACTREC-TMC, Kharghar, Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.

2022

2) Nidhi D. - Poster Presentation at "44th All India Cell Biology Conference & International Symposium"Molecular & Cellular In sights of Human Diseases", Organized by Department of Biochemistry, University of Kashmir, 2 - 3 Sept 2022 - Srinagar, J&K, India.

1) Ankit Naik - Oral Presentation at "5th Edition of International Cancer Conference (Virtual event),Organized by Magnus Conferences, September 16-17, 2022.