About
We are a team of early career researchers at the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Auburn University in Auburn, Alabama. The research focus in our laboratory is the structure-functions studies of soluble and integral membrane iron-dependent enzymes that catalyze strong C-H bond functionalization reactions with molecular oxygen. The aim is to decipher the chemical mechanisms that enable the catalysis of challenging chemical reactions. We also study the regulation enforced by the protein(s) structures that ensure productive substrate turnover and avoids damage from the reactive oxygen species used as oxidants in the reaction.
The soluble methane monooxygenase (sMMO) enzyme is one of the enzymes being studied in our laboratory. The principal investigator, Rahul Banerjee, possesses expertise in the structure-function studies of sMMO, having worked on this enzyme during his doctoral and post-doctoral research studies [1]. Key contributions include the structural and spectroscopic characterization of the oxidant that reacts with methane in sMMO [2,3,4,5,6] elucidating the regulatory schemes that control the selection and temporal delivery of substrates [7,8,9,10,11], and development of a broadly applicable method to purify metalloenzymes while retaining active site metallocofactors [12].
Harun Abdullah is a third-year graduate student tasked with heterologous expression of the sMMO hydroxylase protein in E.coli to enable sMMO structure-function studies through MMOH mutagenesis.
Joined
February 2025
