Marcus Lopez
Pronouns: he/him
Research Mentor(s): James Penner-Hahn
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Chemistry and Biophysics / LSA
Program: UROPF
Session: Session 3 (11:00am – 11:50am)
Authors:
Abstract
Photoexcitation of cobalamins is an active area of research in chemistry. A key compound in this research is the molecule tetradehydrocorrin (TDHC), which was created by T. Hayashi as a way to use myoglobin as a “pocket†to hold cobalt. Cobalt has been proposed as a catalyst for a variety of organic synthetic reactions. Researching cobalt and TDHC will allow a further understanding of how these reactions work and the photochemistry responsible for them. The published crystal structure of cyano- tetradehydrocorrin myoglobin (CN-TDHC-Mb) has a structure that is intermediate between those proposed for the ground state and the excited state of cyanocobalamin; as a consequence, there is great interest in understanding the relationship between the spectra of these species. If the program Finite Difference Method Near Edge Structure (FDMNES) can be used to explain other compounds by fixing the parameters of calculations, we may be able to explain CN-TDHC-Mb using the same procedure. Data was collected using Python, FDMNES, and x-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES) research to create graphs of molecular spectra to compare to one another. If CN-TDHC-Mb cannot be explained with FDMNES, it suggests that the proposed structure of CN-TDHC-Mb is inaccurate. This research will help us understand the chemistry behind binding TDHC to myoglobin, provide us with more information about XANES calculations, and show how structural distortion affects the output of data.
