CCB Seminar Jonathan Caranto (UCF)

About this event

Oxidative nitrogen biochemistries: in search of NO activation

While nitric oxide (NO) is often regarded as toxic, it has a role in several productive biological functions, including as a cell signaling molecule, a component of the human immune response, an intermediate of bioenergetics pathways, and as a biosynthon for bacterial natural products. It might be said its functions are as diverse as those of O 2 . However, unlike the vast literature on O 2 activation, there are far less mechanistic studies and examples of NO activation, particularly en route to biosynthetic reactions. To discover when and how Nature activates NO, we have studied the mechanism of NO-dependent nitration by TxtE, the mechanism of NO peroxidase activity by hemerythrin-like proteins from pathogenic Mycobacteria ( myco HLP), and worked to elucidate bacterial nitramine biosynthesis. This talk will discuss recent progress on these and related projects.