A high field (500 MHz), multinuclear spectrometer is requested to meet the needs of a user group at the Homewood campus of The Johns Hopkins University from the Departments of Chemistry and Biology. A range of projects of chemical and biological significance is described: (1) Biosynthetic studies of aflatoxins and of Beta-lactam antibiotics, interactions of calicheamicin with oligonucleotides. (2) Synthetic and structural investigations of oligosaccarides, glycopeptides and glycolipids for research in carbohydrate recognition and hepatic receptor binding studies. (3) Structural studies of metal-binding peptides of the """"""""zinc finger"""""""" type and related retroviral proteins. (4) Investigation of RNA folding and RNA-protein interactions. (5) Development of new synthetic methods and their application to total asymmetric natural product syntheses. (6) Chemical modeling of oxygen- binding and oxygen-activating copper protein active sites and investigations of the metal-binding properties of glutamyl-cysteinyl . peptides. (7) Structural studies of DNA molecules and oligonucleotides with adenine tracts to understand the origins of DNA bending. (8) Identification by NMR techniques of the labeled sites of alpha- chymotrypsin inhibited with 13C-enriched enzyme-activated inhibitors. Examination of chemi- and bioluminescent reaction mechanisms. Study by low-temperature NMR of deaminatively formed carbonium ions. (9) Oxygenation of hindered and deformed olefins and the reactions and rearrangements of carbenes will be investigated. (10) Synthesis of prostaglandins and their aza-analogues. (11) Studies of the mechanism of action and design of inhibitors for human placental aromatase and lanosterol 14alpha-demethylase.
| Henry, Kevin M; Townsend, Craig A (2005) Synthesis and fate of o-carboxybenzophenones in the biosynthesis of aflatoxin. J Am Chem Soc 127:3300-9 |
| Schwartz, A L; Yikilmaz, E; Vance, C K et al. (2000) Mutational and spectroscopic studies of the significance of the active site glutamine to metal ion specificity in superoxide dismutase. J Inorg Biochem 80:247-56 |
| Miller, A F; Egan, L A; Townsend, C A (1997) Measurement of the degree of coupled isotopic enrichment of different positions in an antibiotic peptide by NMR. J Magn Reson 125:120-31 |
| Busby, R W; Townsend, C A (1996) A single monomeric iron center in clavaminate synthase catalyzes three nonsuccessive oxidative transformations. Bioorg Med Chem 4:1059-64 |
