Christine Karim, Ph.D.

Office:	BSBE
Phone:	(612) 626-3344
Fax:	(240) 248-8993
Mail:	Christine Karim Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Biophysics 321 Church Street, JacH 6-155 Minneapolis, MN 55455
Email:	cbk@ddt.biochem.umn.edu

Research Interests:

Electron spin resonance spectroscopy, phospholamban, Ca-ATPase

The Ca-ATPase is an integral membrane enzyme that pumps calcium into the SR and thus relaxes the muscle, and phospholamban (PLB), the integral membrane peptide involved in regulating the Ca-ATPase. Site-directed spin labeling and electron resonance (EPR) spectroscopy will be used to characterize the molecular dynamics and protein-protein associations in skeletal and cardiac SR, correlated with calcium transport and ATPase activity.

Publications:

1. Karim,C., Philipp, R., Trommer, W. E., and J. H. Park. 1986. Interaction of Glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate Dehydrogenase with AMP as Studied by Means of a Spin-labeled Analog. Biol Chem Hoppe-Seyler 370:1245-1252.

2. Steinhoff, H.-J., Dombrowsky, O., Karim, C. and C. Schneiderhahn. 1991. Two dimensional diffusion of small molecules on protein surfaces: an EPR study of the restricted translational diffusion of protein-bound spin labels. Eur Biophys J, 20:293-303.

3. Steinhoff, H.-J. and C.Karim. 1993. Protein Dynamics and EPR-spectroscopy: Comparison of Molecular Dynamic Simulations with Experiments. Ber Bunsenges Phys Chem, 97:163-171.

4. Thomas, D.D., L.G. Reddy, C. B. Karim, M. Li, R. Cornea, and J. Stamm. 1998. Direct spectroscopic detection of molecular dynamics and interactions of the calcium pump and phospholamban. Ann New York Acad Sci, 853:186-195.

5. Karim, C.B., J.D. Stamm, J. Karim, L.R. Jones, and D.D. Thomas. 1998. Cysteine Reactivity and Oligomeric Structure of Phospholamban and its Mutants. Biochemistry, 37:12074-12081.

6. Karim, C.B., L.G. Reddy, G.W. Hunter, Y.M. Angell, G. Barany, and D.D. Thomas. 1999. Chemical approach for evaluating role of the cysteine residues in pentameric phospholamban structure: effect on sarcoplasmic reticulum. In Peptides for the New Millennium: Proceedings of the Sixteenth American Peptide Symposium (Gregg B. Fields, James P. Tam, and George Barany, eds.), Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, The Netherlands, 2000, pp. 381-382.

7. Karim, C.B., C.G. Marquardt, J.D. Stamm, G. Barany, and D.D. Thomas. 2000. Synthetic Null-Cysteine Phospholamban Analogue and the Corresponding Transmembrane Domain Inhibit the Ca-ATPase. Biochemistry, 39: 10892-10897

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