Date of Award
Fall 2008
Document Type
Dissertation - Restricted
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Chemistry
First Advisor
Kincaid, James R.
Second Advisor
Haworth, Daniel T.
Third Advisor
Sem, Daniel S.
Abstract
Heme proteins, which are ubiquitous in physiological systems, are key components involved in many biological processes, having several different biological functions. For example, myoglobin (Mb) and hemoglobin (Hb) are heme proteins whose biological functions are to reversibly bind an oxygen molecule in order to store and transport molecular oxygen within blood and muscle tissues; cytochromes P-450 (CYPs) play a critical role in activation and cleavage of molecular oxygen to generate redox intermediates which catalyze hydroxylation or epoxidation of their substrates 4; peroxidases mainly participate in an oxidation reaction of organic and inorganic compounds by utilizing hydrogen peroxide as a primary substrate; catalases (CATs) serve a key biological role to eliminate toxic hydrogen peroxide by catalyzing the conversion of hydrogen peroxide to water and oxygen molecules...