J. Greg Zeikus Research Interests continued
The goals of our research are to understand the molecular determinants for enzyme thermal stability and activity; and to redesign the enzymes for enhanced activity and stability. The approach used is to: clone, sequence, analyze and express the respective genes; identify the function of the active site residues by site-directed mutagenesis and activity analysis; relate specific amino acid functions to crystal structure; identify structural features associated with thermostability and, relate enzyme thermostability and activity features to protein biophysical and thermodynamic properties including conformational flexibility, resistance to unfolding, denaturation kinetics, heat capacity, etc.
Full text of research interests