ISBN: 978-83-60043-10-3 - eurobic9

Eurobic9, 2-6 September, 2008, Wrocław, Poland
P188. Cytochrome C Peroxidase and Its “Mimics” as
Fret-Based NO Biosensors
M. Strianese a , F. De Martino a , G.W. Canters b , V. Pavone c , C. Pellecchia a , A. Lombardi c
a Dipartimento di Chimica, Università di Salerno, via S. Allende, I-84081 Baronissi, Salerno, Italy,
b Leiden Institute of Chemistry, Leiden University, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands
c Dipartimento di Chimica, Università Federico II of Napoli, Via Cintia 45, I-80126 Napoli, Italy
e-mail: mstriane@unisa.it
Nitric oxide (NO) has a number of significant roles in physiology and microbiology. For example, NO regulates
vasodilatation in the circulatory system and long-term potentiation in the brain. Furthermore, micromolar
concentrations of NO can cause carcinogenesis and neurodegenerative disorders [1]. Therefore, detection of NO
is an especially challenging problem [2]. The techniques commonly used for NO detection, due to the limitations
of low sensitivity or expensive instrumentation, are not generally useful, especially in biological settings [2].
Recently, a novel use of FRET has been proposed to monitor the activity of a donor-acceptor pair on a protein,
opening the doors to a new generation of fluorescence based biosensors [3]. This method translates the changes
in absorption into a change of fluorescence intensity of a label covalently attached to the protein [3].
The overall properties of Cytochrome C peroxidase (CcP) make it an attractive candidate for developing
a FRET-based NO biosensor. Here, we present data demonstrating that CcP can be successfully used for NO
detection.
Artificially and properly tailored CcP model compounds are also shown to be ideally suited for being used as
FRET-based NO sensors.
References:
[1] M. H. Lim and S. J. Lippard Acc. Chem. Res. 2007, 40, 41
[2] E. M. Boon and M. A. Marletta J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2006, 128, 10022
[3] G. Zauner, M. Strianese, L. Bubacco, T. J. Aartsma, A. W.J.W. Tepper and G. W. Canters Inorg. Chim. Acta,
2008, 361, 1116
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