Life Sciences Commons^™

Reactive Oxygen Species Homeostasis And Proline Catabolism, Lu Zhang

Department of Biochemistry: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The role of proline metabolism in regulating cellular redox status was first proposed three decades ago. Proline catabolism was then later found to induce programmed cell death and cell apoptosis by regulating ROS signaling. Proline oxidation was also found to promote cell survival under oxidative stress. Proline catabolism-mediated reactive oxygen species (ROS) were suggested to be involved in both cases by serving as a regulatory signal. In this work, the sources of proline oxidation-induced ROS production were explored in both bacteria and animal cells. Proline oxidation-induced ROS was found to be shared by bacteria (Escherichia coli) and animals …

Investigation Of Proline Utilization A: Kinetic Analysis Of Substrate Channel-Blocking Mutants And Creation Of A Trifunctional Chimera Enzyme, Benjamin W. Arentson

Department of Biochemistry: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Proline metabolism is known to be involved in many cellular processes such as cell signaling, cellular redox balance, and cell survival. One of the enzymes involved in proline catabolism, proline utilization A, plays a role in oxidizing proline to glutamate in a two-step oxidation pathway involving enzymes proline dehydrogenase (PRODH) and Δ¹-pyrroline-5-carboxylate dehydrogenase (P5CDH).

Intermediate P5C/GSA has been shown to use an intramolecular channel to move from the PRODH active site to the P5CDH active site in a phenomenon called substrate channeling. In this work, one of the main objectives was to learn more about the channel usage. …