2023-2024 Faculty Research Grant

D. David Nowack (Chemistry).

Determination of pH Effects and Oxygen Concentration Effects on the KM and Vmax of Mushroom Tyrosinase.

Enzyme kinetics is a category of biochemistry that is foundational to the overall understanding of life and life’s dependency on enzyme behavior to maintain homeostasis. In an active enzyme, local conditions of its environment dramatically changes the rate (Vmax) and substrate binding (KM). These conditions include materials that intentionally act on the enzyme (allosteric effectors, substrates, products, cofactors) and conditions/materials that action on the protein structure of the enzyme (pH, ion concentrations, temperature).
In this set of two studies, the enzyme mushroom tyrosinase is used as the enzyme of interest to measure and evaluate its response to changes in pH of its environment (the first study) and the response of changes of its oxygen concentration (a substrate for the reaction it catalyzes) (the second study). For this particular tyrosinase, the pH effects study is the first of its kind that an intensive literature has discovered while the oxygen concentration effects study is the first of its kind for this particular substrate of the tyrosinase.