Toward synthetic flavoenzymes

• Main Author: Fitzpatrick, Brian
• Published: University of Glasgow 2010
• Subjects: 547; QD Chemistry
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.643078

The objective of this research was to develop and investigate a number of flavoenzyme model systems which were designed to mimic the microenvironment created by the natural apoenzyme’s active site and which would ultimately lead to controlling the redox properties of the flavin cofactor. In natural flavoenzymes the same cofactor is known to catalyze a wide range of reactions according to the interactions involved in stabilizing the three main flavin redox states; the neutral flavin oxide Flox, the flavin radical anion and the fully reduced neutral flavin FlredH2. Previous work reported within the group had focused on simple but effective small molecule solution model systems to isolate and probe these properties. This next generation of model systems employed a combination of general synthetic and polymerization techniques to firstly create synthetic flavoenzymes which were water soluble and therefore able to exist in solution phase under physiological conditions and secondly to utilize recently developed controlled molecular motion techniques as a novel method of interacting and modulating the cofactors behaviour. This thesis was therefore incorporated under two broad heading, “Polymeric flavoenzyme model systems” and “Controlled molecular motion”, both of which share a common flavin theme.