Design, Synthesis and Characterization of Heme-proteins: Developing Potential Catalysts for Bio-remediation

The next generation of toxic chemicals and hazardous wastes from sophisticated chemical industries will demand the environmental agencies to employ biological methods over the conventional physical and chemical remediation methods. Over the past decade, natural metallo-enzymes have been identified to degrade some of the major chemical contaminants through electron transfer pathways. However, these natural enzymes are less stable in organic solvents and they are not effective for the degradation of toxic compounds such as polychlorinated biphenyls or dioxins. This thesis explores the use of protein design approaches to produce chemically and molecularly modified enzymes, which are highly stable, possess little substrate specificity, and have higher activity than the natural enzymes. The experiments presented in this thesis make use of solid phase synthesis and site-directed mutagenesis for the synthesis and production of these enzymes and popular chromatographic techniques for their purification. The partial characterization of these proteins revealed the essential structural features of these proteins, and their catalytic activity was demonstrated by the use of peroxidase assays.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science

Level thesis:degree_level

masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Biological Systems Engineering

Department dc:contributor.department

Biological Systems Engineering

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

2004

Author dc:creator

• Shah, Kinjalkumar K.

Chairs dc:contributor.committeechair

• Zhang, Chenming Mike
• Gillespie, Joel

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Cundiff, John S.
• Bevan, David R.

• Peroxidase activity
• Cytochrome b562
• Protein design
• Hemeprotein
• Solid phase peptide synthesis
• Four-helix bundle protein

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Dc Identifier Other

etd-02092005-233929

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/31187