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Mutagenic And Spectroscopic Investigation Of Ph Dependent Cooa Dna Binding, Brian R. Weaver Apr 2017

Mutagenic And Spectroscopic Investigation Of Ph Dependent Cooa Dna Binding, Brian R. Weaver

Chemistry Honors Papers

The carbon monoxide (CO) sensing heme protein, CooA, is a transcription factor which exists in several bacteria that utilize CO as an energy source. CooA positively regulates the expression of coo genes in the presence of CO such that the corresponding proteins may metabolize CO. The present studies have yielded the unexpected result that Fe(III) CooA binds DNA tightly at pH < 7, deviating from all previously reported work which indicate that CooA DNA binding is initiated only when the exogenous CO effector reacts with the Fe(II) CooA heme. This observation suggests that the disruption of one or more salt bridges upon effector binding may be a critical feature of the normal CooA activation mechanism. To test this possibility, several protein variants that eliminated a selected salt bridge for the CooA homolog from Rhodospirillum rubrum were prepared via site-directed mutagenesis. Samples of these variant proteins, which were overexpressed in Escherichia coli, were then characterized by spectroscopic methods and functional assays to investigate the impact these mutations had on CooA heme coordination …


Solar Thermal Decoupled Electrolysis: Reaction Mechanism Of Electrochemical Oxidation Of Coo/Co(Oh)2, William Prusinski Apr 2016

Solar Thermal Decoupled Electrolysis: Reaction Mechanism Of Electrochemical Oxidation Of Coo/Co(Oh)2, William Prusinski

Chemistry Honors Papers

A modified water electrolysis process has been developed to produce H2. The electrolysis cell oxidizes CoO to CoOOH and Co3O4 at the anode to decrease the amount of electric work needed to reduce water to H2. The reaction mechanism through which CoO becomes oxidized was investigated, and it was observed that the electron transfer occurred through both a species present in solution and a species adsorbed to the electrode surface. A preliminary mathematical model was established based only on the electron transfer to species in solution, and several kinetic parameters of the reaction were calculated. The average value of each …