Ontwikkeling van metaal-gesubstitueerde en hybride polyoxometalaten als katalysatoren voor de hydrolyse van biomoleculen en hun modelsystemen

In numerous biochemical processes there is a need for artificial peptidases that efficiently cleave peptide bonds in proteins. However, due to the extreme stability of the peptide bond this reaction is very difficult to achieve. In the development of new artificial peptidases, metal-substituted polyoxometalates are presented in this project. From earlier research it became clear that polyoxometalates are able to interact with proteins in a specific way and this interaction may lead to a certain type of selectivity in the artificial peptidase. In this project several polyoxometalates will be functionalised with organic complexes that coordinate hydrolytically active metal ions. Once synthesised, their hydrolytic activity will be investigated on a number of smaller peptides as well as on proteins by using NMR-spectroscopy and SDS-PAGE. The peptide fragments will be further examined to understand the mechanism and selectivity of the hydrolysis reaction. The knowledge achieved from this research will form the basis for a structure-activity relation for the use of metal-substituted polyoxometalates as artificial peptidases.nrpages: 304status: publishe