Organic Chemistry Seminar

Wednesday, May 30th
Professor Mary Kay Pflum
"Chemical Approaches to Monitoring Protein Phosphorylation"

4:15pm - 5:15pm
Braun Lecture Hall
S.G.Mudd Chemistry Building
Stanford University

This seminar is free and open to the public. All Stanford University Chemistry students are encouraged to attend this special event.

About the Seminar:
Protein phosphorylation plays a critical role in a variety of cellular functions. As a result, the monitoring of phosphoproteins in cells represents an important goal for proteomics research. Unfortunately, available methods to modify and enrich phosphopeptides from complex mixtures for subsequent mass spectrometric analysis are challenging. To facilitate phosphoprotein analysis, two novel approaches to phosphoprotein and phosphopeptide purification are described. First, the oxidation-reduction condensation was shown to chemically capture phosphopeptides and phosphoproteins with high selectivity. Second, a kinase-catalyzed biotinylation reaction of phosphoproteins was developed that exploits the fact that kinases permissively accept gamma-phosphate modified ATP analogs. Based on kinase ATP analog permissivity, several kinase-catalyzed labeling reactions are described for phosphoprotein detection and enrichment. To illustrate the utility of the methods, the phosphorylation states of two proteins, the cyclic AMP response element binding protein and histone deacetylase 1 protein, were probed. The combined chemical approaches lay the foundation for development of new chemical tools targeting the phosphoproteome.

About Kay Pflum:
2001-present Assistant Professor, Wayne State University, Department of Chemistry
1999-2001 Post-doctoral Fellow, Harvard University, Department of Chemistry
1993-1999 Doctoral Student, Yale University, Department of Chemistry
1993 Research Student, University of Nijmegen, NSR Research Center, The Netherlands
1991-1992 Research Student, Carleton College, Department of Chemistry

Honors
2002 Research Innovation Award, Research Corporation, Wayne State University
1999 Post-doctoral Fellowship, National Institute of Health, Harvard University
1996 Pre-doctoral Fellowship, American Chemical Society, Division of Organic Chemistry, Yale University
1996 Pre-doctoral Fellowship, Lucille E. Dox Fellowship, Yale University

Questions
Please contact Patricia Dwyer at 650-723-4770.