Department of Chemistry
DR TESSA KEENAN
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Tessa is a Research Associate in chemical glycobiology, working with Professor Martin Fascione (Department of Chemistry). Her interests lie in glycan biosynthesis and enzymology, with a particular focus on bacterial glycosylation systems. She currently studies the enzymes that build pseudaminic acid, a sialic acid-like sugar that plays important roles in bacterial pathogens.
Tessa completed her PhD in Biology at the University of York in 2016, working on protein O-glycosylation in Streptomyces under the supervision of Professor Maggie Smith.
Selected publications
Jeffries, J., Walklett, A. J., Hatton, N. E., Kowalski, B., Keenan, T., Munjoma, L., Haigh, R., Bayliss, C. D., Thomas, G. H. & Fascione, M. A. Rational engineering of a pseudaminic acid synthase enzyme enables access to a 3-fluoro sugar with motility inhibition in bacterial pathogens. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2025, 64 (50), e202515851.
Keenan, T., Cowan, A. R., #Flack, E. K. P., Hatton, N. E., Walklett, A. J., Thomas, G. H., Hemsworth, G. R. & Fascione, M. A. Structural dissection of the CMP-pseudaminic acid synthetase (PseF). Structure, 2024, 32, 1-11
Keenan, T., Chidwick, H., Best, M., Flack, E., Yates, N., Hatton, N., Warnes, M. E., & Fascione, M. A. Co-factor prosthesis facilitates biosynthesis of azido-pseudaminic acid probes for use as glycosyltransferase reporters. Chem. Commun., 2024, 60, 1428-1431
Walklett, A., Flack, E., Chidwick, H., Hatton, N., Keenan, T., Budhadev, D., Walton, J., Thomas, G. H., & Fascione, M. A. The Retaining Pse5Ac7Ac Pseudaminyltransferase KpsS1 Defines a Previously Unreported Glycosyltransferase Family (GT118). Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2024, 63 (15), e202318523.
Hollingsworth, K., Di Maio, A., Richards, S. J., Vendeville, J-B., Wheatley, D. E., Council, C. E., Keenan, T., Ledru, H., Chidwick, H., Huang, K., Parmeggiani, F., Marchesi, A., Chai, W., McBerney, R., Kaminski, T. P., Balmforth, M. R., Tamasanu, A., Charnock, S., Warriner, S. L., Webb, M. E., Fascione, M. A., Flitsch, S., Galan, M. C., Feizi, T., Gibson, M. I, Liu, Y., Turnbull, W. B. & Linclau, B. Synthesis and screening of a library of Lewis deoxyfluoro-analogues reveals differential recognition by glycan-binding partners. Nat. Commun., 2024, 15, article number: 7925
Keenan, T., Hatton, N., Porter, J., Vendeville, J-B., Wheatley, D., Ghirardello, M., Ahmadipour , S., Walton, J., Galan, M. C., Linclau, B., & Miller, G. J., & Fascione, M. A. Reverse thiophosphorylase activity of a glycoside phosphorylase in the synthesis of an unnatural Manβ1,4GlcNAc library. Chem. Sci., 2023,14, 11638-11646
