Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Zinc Environment In Proteins: The Flexible And Reactive Core Of Hiv-1 Ncp7 And The Inhibitory Site Of Caspase-3, A. Gerard Daniel

Theses and Dissertations

Zinc is an essential cofactor of several proteins. The roles of zinc in these proteins are classified as catalytic, structural or regulatory. Zinc present in structural sites is considered to be a chemically inert, static structural element. On the contrary, previous studies on a C2H2 type zinc finger model compound and the C3H type HIV-1 NCp7 C-terminal zinc knuckle have shown that zinc at these sites can undergo coordination sphere expansion under the influence of a Pt based electrophile. The pentacoordination observed around zinc in these experiments raises an important question: are the structural zinc motifs found in the proteins …