Mary Kay Pflum

Department

Chemistry

Phone

313-577-1515

Fax

313-577-8822

Office

323 Chemistry

Biography

Dr. Pflum received a B.A. degree from Carleton College working with Jerry Mohrig in physical organic chemistry. In Ph.D. training at Yale Univeristy with Alanna Schepartz, she worked on several bioorganic projects focusing on phosphoproteins and transcription factors. In an NIH post-doctoral position at Harvard University with Stuart Schreiber, she worked on chemical biology and cell biology projects focusing on histone deacetylase proteins. Dr. Pflum joined the faculty at Wayne State University in 2001 with a research program at the interface of Chemistry and Biology focusing on two cancer-related proteins – kinase and histone deacetylase enzymes.

News mentions

• Department of Chemistry awarded NIH research grant to help identify onset of cancer

Selected publications

• Ramanayake-Mudiyanselage, Vinyda, Embogama DM, and Mary Kay H. Pflum. “Kinase-Catalyzed Biotinylation to Map Cell Signaling Pathways: Application to Epidermal Growth Factor Signaling”, J. Proteomics Research, 2021, 10, 4852–4861. pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jproteome.1c00562
• Al-Hamashi AA, Koranne R, Dlamini S, Alqahtani A, Karaj E, Rashid MS, Knoff JR, Dunworth M, Pflum MKH, Casero RA Jr, Perera L, Taylor WR, Tillekeratne LMV. “A new class of cytotoxic agents targets tubulin and disrupts microtubule dynamics”, Bioorganic Chemistry, 2021, 116, 105297. doi.org/10.1016/j.bioorg.2021.105297
• Gomes, Inosha D, Ariyaratne, Udana V, and Mary Kay H. Pflum. “HDAC6 Substrate Discovery Using Proteomics-Based Substrate Trapping: HDAC6 Deacetylates PRMT5 to Influence Methyltransferase Activity” ACS Chemical Biology, 2021, 16, 1435-1444. pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acschembio.1c00303
• Bahl, Sonali, Ling, Hongbo, Acharige, Nuwan PN, Santos-Barriopedro, Irene, Mary Kay H. Pflum, and Edward Seto. “EGFR phosphorylates HDAC1 to regulate its expression and anti-apoptotic function” Cell Death and Disease, 2021, 12, 469. nature.com/articles/s41419-021-03697-6
• Zhang, Yuchen, Nalawansha, Dhanusha A, Herath, Kavitha E, Andrade, Rafael, and Mary Kay H. Pflum. “Differential Profiles of HDAC1 substrates and associated proteins in breast cancer cells revealed by trapping” Molecular Omics, 2021, 17, 544-533. pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2021/MO/D0MO00047G
• *Fouda, Ahmed E, *Gamage, Aparni K, Mary Kay H. Pflum. “An Affinity-Based, Cysteine-Specific ATP Analog for Kinase-Catalyzed Crosslinking” Angewante Chem Int Ed, 2021, 60, 9859-9862. *co-first authors, onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.202014047
• Acharige, Nuwan PN, and Mary Kay H. Pflum. “Identification of L‐lactate Dehydrogenase as a Protein Tyrosine Phosphatase 1B substrate using K‐BIPS.” ChemBioChem, 2021, 22, 186-192. doi.org/10.1002/cbic.202000499

Research Description

Affiliated Departments

• Chemistry