The role of P450-mediated reactions in cellular processes has made the understanding of P450 mechanism a focus of intense research. The knowledge of catalytic mechanisms is an integral part of the elucidation o enzyme specificity, an important topic in areas as diverse as drug design, bioremediation, and cancer risk estimation. Whereas evidence generally supports alternate mechanistic pathways describing Cytochrome P450-mediated substrate oxidation, it is still unclear what really determines the rate of product formation and hence the pathway of oxidation. To address this issue, we propose to employ a model system consisting of human P450 1A2 and various anisole and N,N-dimethylaniline derivatives and to determine the catalytic steps comprising the demethylation of these substrates. The design of this system is intended to simplify the reactions of interest by minimizing the products of oxidation and to enable an analysis of the steps of the catalytic cycle employing a variety of techniques. As a complement to this work, site- directed mutagenesis will be carried out at key regions implicated in alternate oxidative pathways. The resulting mutants will be characterized and analyzed in terms of the appropriate model catalytic mechanisms.
