Umakant Sahu, Ph.D.

Research Assistant Professor

Umakant did his M. Sc. in Biotechnology at the University of Allahabad (Allahabad, India). He earned his Ph.D. degree from the Indian Institute of Science (Bangalore, India) where he studied the transcriptional metabolic regulation of non-fermentable carbon compounds in a methylotrophic yeast, Pichia pastoris. In the Ben-Sahra laboratory, Umakant is interested in understanding the regulation of nucleotide metabolism in cancer cells.

Education:

Ph.D., 2017, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India

umakant.sahu@northwestern.edu

Sahu U*, Villa E*, Reczek CR, Zhao Z, O'Hara BP, Torno MD, Mishra R, Shannon WD, Asara JM, Gao P, Shilatifard A, Chandel NS, Ben-Sahra I. Pyrimidines maintain mitochondrial pyruvate oxidation to support de novo lipogenesis.
Science. 2024 Mar 29;383(6690):1484-1492. doi: 10.1126/science.adh2771.* Equal contribution.

Villa E, Sahu U, O'Hara BP, Ali ES, Helmin KA, Asara JM, Gao P, Singer BD, Ben-Sahra I. mTORC1 stimulates cell growth through SAM synthesis and m6A mRNA-dependent control of protein synthesis. Molecular Cell. 2021 Mar 17:S1097-2765(21)00177-5. doi: 10.1016/j.molcel.2021.03.009.

Srivastava S, Sahu U, Zhou Y, Hogan AK, Sathyan KM, Bodner J, Huang J, Wong KA, Khalatyan N, Savas JN, Ntziachristos P, Ben-Sahra I, Foltz DR. NOTCH1-driven UBR7 stimulates nucleotide biosynthesis to promote T cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Science Advances. 2021 Jan 27;7(5):eabc9781.

Ali ES*, Sahu U*, Villa E, O’Hara BP, Gao P, Beaudet P, Wood AW, Asara JM, Ben-Sahra I. ERK2 Phosphorylates PFAS to Mediate Posttranslational Control of De Novo Purine Synthesis. Molecular Cell. 2020 May 28:S1097-2765(20)30302-6. doi:10.1016/j.molcel.2020.05.001.* Equal contribution.

Villa E*, Ali ES*, Sahu U*, Ben-Sahra I. Cancer Cells Tune the Signaling Pathways to Empower de Novo Synthesis of Nucleotides. Cancers (Basel). 2019 May 17;11(5). pii: E688. doi: 10.3390/cancers11050688.* Equal contribution.

Sahu U, Rajendra VKH, Kapnoor SS, Bhagavat R, Chandra N, Rangarajan PN. Methionine Synthase Is Localized to the Nucleus in Pichia pastoris and Candida albicans and to the Cytoplasm in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. J Biol Chem. 2017 Sep 8;292(36):14730-14746.

doi: 10.1074/jbc.M117.783019.

Sahu U, Rangarajan PN. (2016) Methanol expression regulator 1 (Mxr1p) is essential for the utilization of amino acids as the sole source of carbon by the methylotrophic yeast, Pichia pastoris. J. Biol. Chem. 291:20588-601.

Sahu U, Rangarajan PN. (2016) Regulation of acetate metabolism and acetyl Co-a synthetase 1 (ACS1) expression by methanol expression regulator 1 (Mxr1p) in the methylotrophic yeast Pichia pastoris. J. Biol. Chem. 291:3648-57.

Sahu U, Rao KK, Rangarajan PN. (2015) Trm1p, a Zn(II)₂Cys₆-type transcription factor, is essential for the transcriptional activation of genes of methanol utilization pathway, in Pichia pastoris. Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun. 451:158-164.