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Poster Presentationα3DH3-GSGA-F31A, A De Novo Designed MetallopeptideSarah CarusoVirginia Cangelosi, Dept. of Chemistry, University of MichiganAdvisor: Vincent Pecoraro, Dept. of Chemistry, University of MichiganDe novo protein design is a powerful method for modeling biological systems. Using thistechnique, it should be possible to design receptors, enzymes, and ion channels from scratch.However, there are many challenges to using this technique, and the field of de novo proteindesign is just reaching the point where researchers can model natural enzymes with rates that arewithin several orders of magnitude. The Pecoraro lab recently published a carbonic anhydrasemodel (CAII) with rates of CO2 hydration that are only 550-fold slower than the natural enzyme.One drawback to this current model is that it has been constructed in a highly symmetricenvironment, making substitutions to further improve catalysis difficult. Using de novo proteindesign, my goal is to model CAII within a single-stranded three-helix construct, α3DH3, whichcontains three histidine residues at the c-terminus for binding Zn(II) and will allow easy pointmutations.35