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N-Acylethanolamines As Novel Alcohol Dehydrogenase 3 Substrates, Milena Ivkovic

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

N-Acylethanolamines (NAEs) are a class of fatty acid amides that act as important mammalian signaling molecules. N-Arachidonoylethanolamine is the best-studied representative and is one of the endogenous ligands for endocannabinoid receptors. NAEs play a role in the regulation of appetite, act as anti-inflammatory and analgesic agents, and are thought to have a neuroprotective function as well. They have been proposed to also serve as precursors to N-acylglycines (NAGs). N-Acylglycinals are likely to be intermediates between the NAEs and the NAGs. The sequential actions of a putative fatty alcohol dehydrogenase and a putative fatty aldehyde dehydrogenase are …

Steady State And Theoretical Investigations Of Peptidylglycine Α-Amidating Monooxygenase (Pam), Edward W. Lowe

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Approximately 50 percent of all known peptide hormones are post-translationally modified at their C-terminus. These peptide hormones are responsible for cellular functions critical to survival. Peptidylglycine alpha-amidating monooxygenase (PAM) is a bi-functional enzyme which catalyzes the conversion of peptide pro-hormones to peptide hormones.

PAM is the only known mammalian enzyme that catalyzes the necessary alpha-amidation to activate these peptide hormones. PAM has previously been found to perform N-dealkylation, as well as O-dealkylation. We report here that a novel chemistry for PAM, S-dealkylation, has now been shown. PAM was able to catalyzes the hydroxylation and subsequent dealkylation for a series …

Metallopeptides As Model Systems For The Study Of Cu(Ii)-Dependent Oxidation Chemistry, William Maung Tay

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Copper is one of the essential metal ions for aerobic organisms. Two well known functions of copper in the biological systems are electron transfer and molecular oxygen interaction. Thus, this metal can be found in haemocyanin, an oxygen carrier protein, and superoxide dismutase, an enzyme that involves in electron transfer. In addition, having a positive redox potential allows copper to be involved in redox chemistry. It is the redox properties of copper that are responsible for many important biochemical processes. Although the copper-containing oxidases have been well studied over the years, certain mechanistic details such as reaction intermediates remain to …