The thrust of this project is the preparation of a series of synthetic analogues of methanobactin, a small copper-containing protein that is present in methane-oxidizing bacteria and exhibits potent bacteriostatic activity. Several new families of copper(I) complexes containing chelating bis(thione) and bis(selone) ligands will be synthesized with the goal of understanding the influence of the coordination environment on the high affinity that methanobactin exhibits for extracellular copper. In addition, the potential antibacterial activity of these compounds against S. aureus will be explored. The project is interdisciplinary in nature, ranging from synthetic inorganic chemistry to microbiology, and will attract students with a diversity of backgrounds and interests.
With this award, the Inorganic, Bioinorganic and Organometallic (IBO) program is supporting the research of Professor Daniel Rabinovich of the Department of Chemistry at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Professor Rabinovich?s research efforts in synthetic and structural inorganic and organometallic chemistry center on the application of a variety of sulfur-donor ligands to the preparation of synthetic analogues of a variety of sulfur-rich metallobiomolecules that are biologically active or mimic catalytic industrial processes such as hydrogen generation.
