CAREER: Meshing Synthesis and Biosynthesis in Research and Teaching

Iowa State University, Ames IA

Investigators

Abstract

The research component of this CAREER project explores the differences between a representative eukaryote, prokaryote, and hyperthermophilic (grows at over 80 degrees C) archaea in their utilization of sugars and, more specifically, their evolved strategies for substrate recognition and turnover by enzymes involved in the synthesis of carbohydrate polymers and sugar nucleotides. An understanding of the differences in carbohydrate binding and catalysis between the three major life forms provides not only a window into the evolution of such a fundamental aspect of life as sugar metabolism, but also clues to the directed evolution and use of these protein catalysts over a range of temperatures for laboratory and industrial syntheses of carbohydrate or carbohydrate-derived structures. The teaching component of this project is 1) redesigning the undergraduate organic laboratory curriculum for discovery-based learning and introducing state-of-the-art concepts and techniques and 2) incorporating the non-covalent interactions common to biological binding events into and developing examples from fields intersecting with chemistry for both undergraduate organic chemistry and graduate level physical organic chemistry courses. Broader Impact: Probing the differences in charged sugar recognition among the three major branches of life and developing new teaching aids will have broad impact in attracting students to chemistry, in mentoring and training students in research, in developing new mass spectrometry-based and synthetic methodologies, in discovering rules for best use of carbohydrate-recognizing biocatalysts in syntheses based on renewable resources, and in providing insights into how the basic processes of life may have evolved. This award is co-funded by the Metabolic Biochemistry program and the Organic and Macromolecular Chemistry program.