Engineering a Purple copper(A) Site Into the Blue Copper Protein Azurin: Construction, Spectroscopy, and Metal Substitution Studies

177 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1998.Metal substitution studies of azurin-CuA have been performed using various metal ions (i.e., Hg2+, Ag+, Cu +, Cd+, Rh2+, Au+, Co 2+, and Ni2+). Metal binding was determined by electronic absorption and electrospray mass spectrometry. The results obtained from theses studies indicate that there are two factors that may influence binding in azurin-CuA: (1) the site tends to bind metal combinations which produce an overall +3 charge, and (2) the site binds soft thiophilic metals. Further characterization of the above derivatives will contribute to the understanding of the metal-binding affinity, rigidity, and other structural properties of purple copper centers.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD