Seminar by Mr. Thibaud von Erlach

École Polytechnique Fédérale De Lausanne, EPFL (Switzerland)

Evolutionary Strategies to optimise enzyme mimics

In recent years, self-assembling molecules, especially the coiled-coils, have become systems of great interest for the production of chemical compounds, as it has been shown that they can be used as scaffolds with catalytic active sites. Synthetic scaffolds have multiple advantages over enzymes as they are easier to synthesize and can be easily adapted to one's need by de novo synthesis. However, before synthetic coiled coils can be used as suitable alternative to enzymes, the catalytic activity must be comparable to the wild-type counterpart. Unfortunately today's mimics are far from the efficiency of natural enzymes because they are missing the complete environment created by evolution in order to get the most efficient enzyme. Thus, in-depth studies of the structural stability, binding properties and catalytic mechanism are necessary in order to improve their capacity to catalyse desired reactions. This work will focus on the study of a designed zinc metalloenzyme that catalyses the hydration of CO2 using a three stranded coiled-coil (3SCC) as the scaffold.