Nitrate Reductase: A Magic...( tarted recombinant expression of nitrat...)

tarted recombinant expression of nitrate reductase, we couldn't produce an entire enzyme--now we can." The Michigan Tech Professor has worked with Swedish crystallographers who crystallized the first part of the enzyme, which was produced in a bacterium in 1989. This allowed them to determine the 3-dimensional structure of this fragment of nitrate reductase, which houses the flavin in the complete enzyme. Now they can "see" it through the use of a computerized model.

"We're studying the structure of the enzyme with the goal of understanding how it catalyzes the nitrate reduction process," says Campbell. "In the next couple of years we hope to get extensive information about crystal structure that will help us solve the structure/function mystery. Ultimately we need to be able to produce large quantities of enzyme to use in these experiments."

Campbell says the recombinant process enables scientists to clone a gene from a plant, put it into a vector that "allows us to manipulate the cloned gene and place it into a yeast where a promoter is 'triggered' by methanol and allows us to control when the gene is expressed. The end result is an enzyme that is very much like the natural nitrate reductase we started out with. This gives us capacity to produce the qualities of the enzyme we need for research." He also says this is the first step toward making nitrate reductase commercially available on a very large scale, which will make it useful to industry.

Successful completion of the Michigan Tech studies will lead to a complete and detailed picture of nitrate reductase structure and function and will guide future studies of the enzyme, according to Campbell. Overall, he feels his research program is a good example of how basic research, even into an esoteric plant enzyme, has a potential payoff for society in terms of a higher quality of life and tends to help prove the value of basic research as a tool for improving America's economic
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Contact: Bill Campbell
wcampbel@mtu.edu
906-487-2214
Michigan Technological University
9-Mar-1998

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