Dr. Alexey Silakov

headshotDr. Alexey Silakov

Assistant Professor

Department: Chemistry
College:  Eberly College of Science
Address: 330 Chemistry Building
Phone: 814-863-7248
E-mail: aus40@psu.edu
Website: https://sites.psu.edu/silakovlab/

Trapping and Spectroscopic Investigation of Intermediates in Metalloenzymes
Metalloenzymes catalyze a wide variety of difficult reactions that, in majority of cases, require a chain of chemical transformations. One of the keys to understanding of how an enzymatic system operates is an observation and a characterization of catalytic intermediates. The Silakov group is interested in a novel hybrid class of enzymes containing two catalytically active domains: a hydrogen-utilizing [Fe-Fe] hydrogenase and a rubrerythrin. It is hypothesized that the hydrogen is heterolytically cleaved by the [Fe-Fe] hydrogenase domain to provide electrons and protons, which in turn are used by the di-iron site of rubrerythrin to reduce hydrogen peroxide to water. The study will focus on understanding the interaction between the two domains by means of trapping intermediates and through inhibition experiments. REU students will learn to overexpress and isolate metalloenzymes, perform rapid-freeze quench experiments and characterize obtained samples by electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) and/or fourier-transform infrared spectroscopies. Students will also be provided with an opportunity to perform theoretical modeling of the experimental data using EPR simulation software and perform density functional theory calculations.