Catalytic and Electronic Properties of Redox-Active Metalloenzymes and Transition-Metal Complexes: Insights from the Computational Chemistry.

Charles University in Prague Faculty of Science Department of Modeling of Chemical Properties of Bio- and Nanostructures Catalytic and Electronic Properties of Redox-Active Metalloenzymes and Transition- Metal Complexes: Insights from the Computational Chemistry Dissertation Thesis Abstract RNDr. Martin Srnec Supervisor: Mgr. Lubomír Rulíšek, CSc. Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry AS CR Center for Biomolecules and Complex Molecular Systems Praha 2010 Introduction Metals and their ions play a key role in maintaining life. They frequently promote protein folding, the stabilization of protein scaffolds, enzymatic activity, energy conversion, intra- and intercellular signals etc. Several decades ago, metalloproteins were considered as a rather small group of proteins. Nowadays, one-third of enzymes are estimated to contain one or more metal ions, whose presence is crucial for their enzymatic functionality. Metalloenzymes participate most often in the catalysis of difficult chemical reactions (e.g. the hydroxylation of methane, decomposition of H2 into protons and electrons, N2 and O2 bond cleavage and many other examples), in oxidation-reduction and electron-transfer reactions, and in the catalysis of spin-forbidden reactions, where relativistic effects (i.e. spin-orbit coupling) are necessary...