Karen Allen

Professor, Department of Chemistry

Enzyme Mechanisms and Macromolecular Crystallography

• Aldolase Isozymes
• Dolichol Pathway Enzymes
• Phosphotransferases in the Haloalkanoate Dehalogenase Superfamily
• Lanthanide-Binding Tags

Office: SCI 394A
Phone: 617-358-5544
Fax: 617-353-6466
E-mail: drkallen@bu.edu

Office hours: By appointment

• B.S., cum laude in Biology, Tufts University, 1984
• Ph.D. in Biochemistry, Brandeis University, 1989
• American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellow in X-ray Crystallography, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1989 and Brandeis University, 1990

Program Chair, XXI Enzyme Mechanism Conference

Program Chair, American Chemical Society National Meeting, Biological Chemistry Division

Faculty of 1000, contributor

Gordon Research Conference, Enzymes, Coenzymes and Metabolic Pathways, Co-Chair

• National Institutes of Health
• National Science Foundation
• Genzyme Corporation

• Associate Editor, Biochemistry

• GRS CH722 - Protein Chemistry: Function and Form

Research in the Allen lab is concerned with diverse aspects of protein structure, function, and design. The lab employs a multidisciplinary approach involving state-of-the-art X-ray crystallography and spectroscopy, molecular modeling, enzymology, bioinformatics, and molecular biology to address fundamental problems at the interface of Enzymology and Structural Biology

Allen Group Home Page

• SELECTED
• Nitz, M., Sherawat, M., Franz, K. J., Peisach, E., Allen, K. N., and Imperiali, B. (2004) “Structural Origin of the High Affinity of a Chemically Evolved Lanthanide-Binding Peptide” Angew. Chemie, 28, 2037-2045.
• Ali, M., Peisach, E., Allen, K.N., and Imperiali, B. (2004) “X-Ray Structure Analysis of a Designed Oligomeric Mini-Protein Reveals a Discrete Quaternary Architecture” Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci., 101, 12183-12188.
• Allen, K.N. and Dunaway-Mariano, D. (2004) “Phosphoryl Group Transfer: Evolution of a Catalytic Scaffold” Trends Biochem. Sci., 29, 495-503.
• Malay, A., Allen, K.N., and Tolan, D.R. (2005) “Structure of the Thermolabile Mutant Aldolase B, A149P: Molecular Basis of Hereditary Fructose Intolerance” J. Mol. Biol., 347, 135-44
• Zhang G, Dai J, Wang L, Dunaway-Mariano D, Tremblay LW, Allen K.N. (2005) “Catalytic Cycling in beta-Phosphoglucomutase: A Kinetic and Structural Analysis” Biochemistry, 44, 9404-16.
• Silvaggi NR, Zhang C, Lu Z, Dai J, Dunaway-Mariano D, Allen KN. (2006) “The x-ray crystal structures of human alpha -phosphomannomutase 1 reveal the structural basis of congenital disorder of glycosylation type 1a.” J Biol Chem. 281, 14918-14926.
• Choi, K.H., Lai, V, Foster, C.E., Morris, A.J., Tolan, D.R., and Allen, K.N. (2006) New Superfamily Members Identified for Schiff-base Enzymes Based on Confirmation of Catalytically Essential Residues, Biochemistry, 45, 8546-55.
• Burroughs, M.A., Allen, K.N., Dunaway-Mariano, D., and Aravind, L. (2006) Evolutionary genomics of the HAD superfamily: understanding the structural adaptations and catalytic diversity in a superfamily of phosphoesterases and allied enzymes, J. Mol. Biol., 361, 1003-34.
• Silvaggi NR, Martin LJ, Schwalbe H, Imperiali B, and Allen K.N. (2007) Double-Lanthanide-Binding Tags for Macromolecular Crystallographic Structure Determination. J Am Chem Soc. 129, 7114-20.
• Silvaggi NR, Boldt GE, Hixon MS, Kennedy JP, Tzipori S, Janda KD, and Allen K.N. (2007) Structures of Clostridium botulinum Neurotoxin Serotype A Light Chain Complexed with Small-Molecule Inhibitors Highlight Active-Site Flexibility. Chem Biol. 14, 533-42.
• Lu, Z., Dunaway-Mariano, D. and Allen, K.N. (2008) The Catalytic Scaffold of the HAD Enzyme Superfamily Acts as a Mold for the Trigonal Bipyramidal Transition State Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., 105, 5687–5692.