Graduation Year

2009

Document Type

Thesis

Degree

M.S.

Degree Granting Department

Chemistry

Major Professor

David J. Merkler, Ph.D.

Committee Member

G. King Farrington, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Roman Manetsch, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Mark L. McLaughlin, Ph.D.

Keywords

Kinetics, Enzyme, Quinone, Mushroom, Oxygen electrode

Abstract

Tyrosinase is a widespread, highly studied and important enzyme involved in processes ranging from the browning of mushrooms to roles in mammalian cancer. The enzyme suffers from a noticeable lag phase while the enzyme generates all necessary cofactors from available substrates. There have not been significant studies of the effect on lag from moving through a family of substituted substrates. This thesis reports the results of one such study using a family of N-acyltyramines.

The selection of N-acyltyramines was ideal because the substrates in this reaction may be related to synthesis of N-acyldopamines, which serve many important physiological functions. It was concluded that the product formed from N-acetyltyramine is 1-acetyl-2,3-dihydro-1H-indole-6,7-dione, a quinone.

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