Reaction mechanism of metalloenzymes studied by theoretical methods
Metalloenzymes are proteins that contain one or more metal ions bound to protein. They constitute about one-third of all enzymes known so far and they often perform hard chemical reactions involving small substrates, like H2 and N2. In our research, we focus on those metal ions that are located in the active sites and perform redox reactions, i.e. involving electron transfer. Why enzymes? As we kMetalloenzymes catalyse a wide variety of reactions in nature. In the thesis, I have studied the reaction mechanism of three metalloenzymes, viz. [NiFe] hydrogenase (H2ase), dimethyl sulfoxide reductase (DMSOR) and formate dehydrogenase (FDH), by theoretical methods, namely quantum mechanics (QM), combined quantum mechanical and molecular mechanics (QM/MM), as well as QM/MM thermodynamic cycle per