Calophyllum inophyllum is a medicinal plant that is rich in bioactive natural products. Calophinone¡]29¡^¡Bcaloxanthone I¡]30¡^¡Bbrasilixanthone B¡]31¡^¡Bpyranojacareubin¡]32¡^ and osajaxanthone¡]33¡^are five compounds which were isolated from the bark in this experiment. It is the first time to isolate calophinone¡]29¡^ from a matural source. In order to identify calophinone¡]29¡^, 6-acetylcalophinone¡]34¡^ was prepared via acylation. All structures were determined primarily on the basis of 1D, 2D NMR¡BUV¡BIR and Mass spectral analyses. Besides, biological studies don¡¦t reveal that Calophinone¡]29¡^¡Bcaloxanthone I¡]30¡^¡Bbrasilixanthone B¡]31¡^¡Bpyranojacareubin¡]32¡^¡Bosajaxanthone¡]33¡^and 6-acetylcalophinone¡]34¡^, exhibited in vitro cytotoxicity against human liver carcunoma¡BHuman oral epidermoid carcunoma and Human cervical epidermoid carcunoma. In addition, four new Taxoid derivatives that were 13-O-camphanyl-7-O -nicotinoylbaccatin III¡]34¡^¡B13-O-camphanyl-1-deoxybaccatin VI¡]35¡^¡B13-O-¡]4-chlorobenzoyl¡^-7-O-nicotinoylbaccatin III¡]36¡^and 13-O-benzoyl-7-O -nicotinoylbaccatin III¡]37¡^have been prepared via esterification under sonication starting from 13-deacetyl-7-O-nicotinoylbaccatin III¡]32¡^ and 13-deacetyl-1-deoxybaccatin VI¡]31¡^. All the structures were established primarily on the basis of 1D and 2D NMR techniques including DEPT, COSY, HMBC experiments, as well as comparison with known related compounds. It was deemed quite promising to investigate the structure-activity relationship ( SAR ) for the C - 13 side chain analogues of Taxol with some modification of the baccatin III¡]30¡^ moiety in order to discover more effective anticancer agents with better pharmacological properties. Compounds 34 and 35 showed significant cytotoxicity against prostate cancer cell line¡]PC-3¡^. Under concentration of 10£gM, the cell survival percent was 76% and 65% in case of compounds 34 and 35 compared to 60 % in case of Taxol. According to the structure-activity relationship, nicotinoyl and camphanic acyl group should be the source of activity in compounds 30 and 31. Consequently, it is necessary to introduce nicotinoyl chloride and camphanic acyl chloride groups via chemical reaction to improve the bioactivity.

Stimuli-responsive hydrogels swell or contract in response to external pH, ionic strength or temperature, and are of considerable interest as pharmaceutical controlled release devices. Alginate, a linear polysaccharide consisting of mannuronic and guluronic acids, was used as starting material in semisynthesis of pH-responsive hydrogel. Linear alginate was chemically modified with di-aldehyde via acid-catalyzed acetalization, forming a tetrafunctional acetal-linked semisynthetic network alginate polymer (SNAP) with carboxylate moieties preserved as stimuli-responsive sensors. The kinetics of acetalization were found to undergo zero and second-order reaction with respect to di-aldehyde and alginate respectively. With the determined rate constant of 19.06 L•mole-1•s-1 at 40oC and activation energy of 78.58 kJ•mol-1, a proposed predictive reaction model may be used a priori to select reaction conditions providing specific polymer properties. Gel swelling and average pore size were then able to be kinetically or thermodynamically controlled between 80-1000 fold and 30 nm-1 m respectively. As a proof of concept, SNAP hydrogel was fine-tuned with specific swelling and pore sizes for absorptive encapsulation and controlled release of a wide spectrum of molecular sizes of proteins ranging between 1.3 to 546 kDa. SNAP hydrogels/granules demonstrated limited swelling in the simulated gastric environment, protecting proteins from enzymatic and acid degradation, while swelling in alkaline media, releasing active therapeutics in a simulated intestinal lumen (pH ~ 7.8), so is under the consideration as an oral delivery vehicle for protein therapeutics. A constitutive polyelectrolyte gel model based on non-Gaussian polymer elasticity, Flory-Huggins liquid lattice theory, and non-ideal Donnan-membrane equilibria was derived, to describe SNAP gel swelling in dilute and ionic solutions. The derived model accurately describes the SNAP hydrogel swelling in acid and alkaline solutions of wide range of ionic strength. The pore sizes of SNAP hydrogel were estimated by the derived model and were comparable to those determined experimentally by thermoporometry and protein diffusion. The derived model can characterize hydrogel structure such as molecular weight between crosslinks, or can be used as predictive model for swelling and pore size if gel structural information is known, and can potentially be applied to other point-link network polyelectrolytes such as hyaluronic acid gel. / Thesis (Ph.D, Chemical Engineering) -- Queen's University, 2009-07-20 11:48:17.508

Organic co-solvent-induced secondary conformation of α17-40 of human hemoglobin facilitates the splicing of E30-R31 in a mixture of its complementary segments by V8 protease. The amino acid sequence of α17-40 has been conceptualized by the general structure FR1-EALER-FRII and the pentapeptide sequence EALER playing a major role in inducing the α-helical conformation. The primary structure of α17-40 has been engineered in multiple ways to perturb one, two, or all three regions and the influence of the organic co-solvent-induced conformation and the concomitant resistance of E30-R31 peptide bond to V8 protease digestion has been investigated. The central pentapeptide (EALER), referred to here as splicedon,3 appears to dictate a primary role in facilitating the splicing reaction. When the same flanking regions are used, (1) splicedons that carry amino acid residues of low α-helical potential, for example G at position 2 or 3 of the splicedon, generate a conformational trap of very low thermodynamic stability, giving an equilibrium yield of only 3%-5%; (2) splicedons with amino acid residues of good α-helical potential generate a conformational trap of medium thermodynamic stability and give an equilibrium yield of 20%-25%; (3) the splicedons with amino residues of good α-helical potential and also an amino acid that can generate an i, i + 4 side-chain carboxylate-guanidino (amino) interaction, a conformational trap of maximum thermodynamic stability is generated, giving an equilibrium yield of 45%-50%; and (4) the thermodynamic stability of the conformational trap of the spliced peptide is also influenced by the amino acid composition of the flanking regions. The V8 protease resistance of the spliced peptide bond is not a direct correlate of the amount of α-helical conformation induced into the product. The results of this study reflect the unique role of the splicedon in translating the organic co-solvent-induced product conformation as a site-specific stabilization of the spliced peptide bond. It is speculated that the splicedon with higher α-helical potential as compared to either one of the flanking regions achieves this by integrating its potential with that of the flanking region(s). Exchange of flanking regions with the products of other V8 protease-catalyzed splicing reactions will help to establish the general primary structural requirements of this class of splicing reactions and facilitate their application in modular construction of proteins.

As cumarinas são estruturas interessantes aos olhos da química medicinal, apresentando diversas atividades biológicas sobre os mais variados alvos. Neste trabalho, em um primeiro momento, realizamos a extração com CO2 em meio supercrítico das cumarinas de Pterocaulon balansae, planta nativa do Rio Grande do Sul que apresenta em sua composição grandes quantidades destes compostos. A extração com CO2 supercrítico apresentou rendimentos satisfatórios em massa de sete cumarinas previamente descritas para estas espécies. Dentre estes se destacam os compostos majoritários 7-(2,3-epoxi-3-metil-3-butiloxi)-6-metoxicumarina e 5,6-dimetoxi-7-(2’,3’-epoxi-3-metilbutiloxi) cumarina. Realizamos também a síntese de 4-metilcumarinas através de reação de Pechmann, obtendo o composto LaSOM 77 (7-hidroxi-4-matilcumarina) com excelentes rendimentos, onde realizamos uma diversificação estrutural através da adição de um linker e posteriormente a síntese de triazóis através de “Click Chemistry”. Para tanto, utilizamos uma biblioteca de 35 alcinos disponíveis comercialmente e outros 3 sintetizados em nosso laboratório. Sendo assim, obtivemos uma biblioteca de 38 híbridos cumarina-triazol que apresentaram excelentes rendimentos, em tempos reacionais que variaram entre 20 e 50 minutos de reação sob irradiação de microondas. Os testes biológicos preliminares frente a linhagens cancerígenas indicaram que os compostos sintetizados apresentam potencial utilização como anticancerígenos, sendo ativos frente a linhagens celulares de câncer de pulmão, fígado e mama, apresentando baixa toxicidade em células sadias. A partir das investigações teóricas e experimentais relacionadas à este trabalho foi produzido um artigo de revisão, intitulado “New insights into the chemistry and antioxidante activity of coumarins” está aceito pelo periódico Current Topics in Medicinal Chemistry. / Coumarins are interesting structures for the medicinal chemistry, because present several biological activities. At first, we performed the supercritical CO2 extraction from Pterocaulon balansae, a plant native from Rio Grande do Sul, which has in its composition large amounts of these compounds. The extraction with supercritical CO2 showed satisfactory yields of seven coumarins previously described for this species. Among these compounds the coumarins 7-(2,3-epoxy-3-methyl-3-butyloxy)-6-methoxycoumarin e 5,6-dimethoxy-7-(2’,3’-epoxy-3-methylbutyloxy) coumarin are the majority compunds. We also performed the synthesis of 4-methylcoumarins using Pechmann reaction, obtaining the compound LaSOM 77 (7-hydroxy-4-methyl-coumarin) in excellent yield and perfomed the structural diversification trougth the addition of a linker and subsequentely synthesis of 1,2,3-triazoles by Click Chemistry. Therefore, was used a colection of 35 commercialy available alkynes and other 3 synthesized in our laboratory to obtain a colection of 38 coumarin-triazole hybrids in excellent yields and time of reaction ranging betwenn 20 and 50 minutes under microwave radiation. Preliminary biological tests against cancerous strains indicated that the synthesized compounds have potential use as anticancer agents against cell lines of lung, liver and breast cancer. From the theorical and experimental data from this work, one review paper was produced: The article is intitled “New insights into the chemistry and antioxidante activity of coumarins” is accepted to the journal "Current Topics in Medicinal Chemistry".

As cumarinas são estruturas interessantes aos olhos da química medicinal, apresentando diversas atividades biológicas sobre os mais variados alvos. Neste trabalho, em um primeiro momento, realizamos a extração com CO2 em meio supercrítico das cumarinas de Pterocaulon balansae, planta nativa do Rio Grande do Sul que apresenta em sua composição grandes quantidades destes compostos. A extração com CO2 supercrítico apresentou rendimentos satisfatórios em massa de sete cumarinas previamente descritas para estas espécies. Dentre estes se destacam os compostos majoritários 7-(2,3-epoxi-3-metil-3-butiloxi)-6-metoxicumarina e 5,6-dimetoxi-7-(2’,3’-epoxi-3-metilbutiloxi) cumarina. Realizamos também a síntese de 4-metilcumarinas através de reação de Pechmann, obtendo o composto LaSOM 77 (7-hidroxi-4-matilcumarina) com excelentes rendimentos, onde realizamos uma diversificação estrutural através da adição de um linker e posteriormente a síntese de triazóis através de “Click Chemistry”. Para tanto, utilizamos uma biblioteca de 35 alcinos disponíveis comercialmente e outros 3 sintetizados em nosso laboratório. Sendo assim, obtivemos uma biblioteca de 38 híbridos cumarina-triazol que apresentaram excelentes rendimentos, em tempos reacionais que variaram entre 20 e 50 minutos de reação sob irradiação de microondas. Os testes biológicos preliminares frente a linhagens cancerígenas indicaram que os compostos sintetizados apresentam potencial utilização como anticancerígenos, sendo ativos frente a linhagens celulares de câncer de pulmão, fígado e mama, apresentando baixa toxicidade em células sadias. A partir das investigações teóricas e experimentais relacionadas à este trabalho foi produzido um artigo de revisão, intitulado “New insights into the chemistry and antioxidante activity of coumarins” está aceito pelo periódico Current Topics in Medicinal Chemistry. / Coumarins are interesting structures for the medicinal chemistry, because present several biological activities. At first, we performed the supercritical CO2 extraction from Pterocaulon balansae, a plant native from Rio Grande do Sul, which has in its composition large amounts of these compounds. The extraction with supercritical CO2 showed satisfactory yields of seven coumarins previously described for this species. Among these compounds the coumarins 7-(2,3-epoxy-3-methyl-3-butyloxy)-6-methoxycoumarin e 5,6-dimethoxy-7-(2’,3’-epoxy-3-methylbutyloxy) coumarin are the majority compunds. We also performed the synthesis of 4-methylcoumarins using Pechmann reaction, obtaining the compound LaSOM 77 (7-hydroxy-4-methyl-coumarin) in excellent yield and perfomed the structural diversification trougth the addition of a linker and subsequentely synthesis of 1,2,3-triazoles by Click Chemistry. Therefore, was used a colection of 35 commercialy available alkynes and other 3 synthesized in our laboratory to obtain a colection of 38 coumarin-triazole hybrids in excellent yields and time of reaction ranging betwenn 20 and 50 minutes under microwave radiation. Preliminary biological tests against cancerous strains indicated that the synthesized compounds have potential use as anticancer agents against cell lines of lung, liver and breast cancer. From the theorical and experimental data from this work, one review paper was produced: The article is intitled “New insights into the chemistry and antioxidante activity of coumarins” is accepted to the journal "Current Topics in Medicinal Chemistry".

As cumarinas são estruturas interessantes aos olhos da química medicinal, apresentando diversas atividades biológicas sobre os mais variados alvos. Neste trabalho, em um primeiro momento, realizamos a extração com CO2 em meio supercrítico das cumarinas de Pterocaulon balansae, planta nativa do Rio Grande do Sul que apresenta em sua composição grandes quantidades destes compostos. A extração com CO2 supercrítico apresentou rendimentos satisfatórios em massa de sete cumarinas previamente descritas para estas espécies. Dentre estes se destacam os compostos majoritários 7-(2,3-epoxi-3-metil-3-butiloxi)-6-metoxicumarina e 5,6-dimetoxi-7-(2’,3’-epoxi-3-metilbutiloxi) cumarina. Realizamos também a síntese de 4-metilcumarinas através de reação de Pechmann, obtendo o composto LaSOM 77 (7-hidroxi-4-matilcumarina) com excelentes rendimentos, onde realizamos uma diversificação estrutural através da adição de um linker e posteriormente a síntese de triazóis através de “Click Chemistry”. Para tanto, utilizamos uma biblioteca de 35 alcinos disponíveis comercialmente e outros 3 sintetizados em nosso laboratório. Sendo assim, obtivemos uma biblioteca de 38 híbridos cumarina-triazol que apresentaram excelentes rendimentos, em tempos reacionais que variaram entre 20 e 50 minutos de reação sob irradiação de microondas. Os testes biológicos preliminares frente a linhagens cancerígenas indicaram que os compostos sintetizados apresentam potencial utilização como anticancerígenos, sendo ativos frente a linhagens celulares de câncer de pulmão, fígado e mama, apresentando baixa toxicidade em células sadias. A partir das investigações teóricas e experimentais relacionadas à este trabalho foi produzido um artigo de revisão, intitulado “New insights into the chemistry and antioxidante activity of coumarins” está aceito pelo periódico Current Topics in Medicinal Chemistry. / Coumarins are interesting structures for the medicinal chemistry, because present several biological activities. At first, we performed the supercritical CO2 extraction from Pterocaulon balansae, a plant native from Rio Grande do Sul, which has in its composition large amounts of these compounds. The extraction with supercritical CO2 showed satisfactory yields of seven coumarins previously described for this species. Among these compounds the coumarins 7-(2,3-epoxy-3-methyl-3-butyloxy)-6-methoxycoumarin e 5,6-dimethoxy-7-(2’,3’-epoxy-3-methylbutyloxy) coumarin are the majority compunds. We also performed the synthesis of 4-methylcoumarins using Pechmann reaction, obtaining the compound LaSOM 77 (7-hydroxy-4-methyl-coumarin) in excellent yield and perfomed the structural diversification trougth the addition of a linker and subsequentely synthesis of 1,2,3-triazoles by Click Chemistry. Therefore, was used a colection of 35 commercialy available alkynes and other 3 synthesized in our laboratory to obtain a colection of 38 coumarin-triazole hybrids in excellent yields and time of reaction ranging betwenn 20 and 50 minutes under microwave radiation. Preliminary biological tests against cancerous strains indicated that the synthesized compounds have potential use as anticancer agents against cell lines of lung, liver and breast cancer. From the theorical and experimental data from this work, one review paper was produced: The article is intitled “New insights into the chemistry and antioxidante activity of coumarins” is accepted to the journal "Current Topics in Medicinal Chemistry".

Submitted by Izabel Monteiro (izabel_22@hotmail.com) on 2016-08-03T15:21:04Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação - Rafael Castro Araujo.pdf: 5263726 bytes, checksum: 7ccec44bee5d94b70a0e70267cafc573 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Divisão de Documentação/BC Biblioteca Central (ddbc@ufam.edu.br) on 2016-08-17T18:33:11Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação - Rafael Castro Araujo.pdf: 5263726 bytes, checksum: 7ccec44bee5d94b70a0e70267cafc573 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Divisão de Documentação/BC Biblioteca Central (ddbc@ufam.edu.br) on 2016-08-17T18:42:18Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação - Rafael Castro Araujo.pdf: 5263726 bytes, checksum: 7ccec44bee5d94b70a0e70267cafc573 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-17T18:42:18Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação - Rafael Castro Araujo.pdf: 5263726 bytes, checksum: 7ccec44bee5d94b70a0e70267cafc573 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-04-29 / CNPq - Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / The Amazon rainflorest has described by its fauna, flora and microbiota, arousing interest of researchers for this region aggregated knowledge. Such interest is regarding the new findings saying that Amazon has an incredible biodiversity, where new molecules with potential for new drugs are often reported. Among the alternatives to existing drugs in the market is semisynthesis of organic molecules. In this work all semisynthesis were made from secalonic acids, isocoumarin bergenin and triterpene polycarpol. Those bioactive substances where isolated in advance from a microorganism and plants from Amazon. Through simple structural modification reactions, nine compounds were obtained and identified as: dibenzyl secalonic acid, dibenzyl bergenin, 15-O-benzoyl-polycarpol, 24-epoxy-polycarpol, 3-acetyl-policarpol, 15-acetyl-polycarpol, 3,15-diacetyl-polycarpol, 2,6,12,15-tetroxide-polycarpol. Additionally the reaction intermediate O-acyldicicloexylisoureia has been isolated and characterized. This intermediate and polycarpol derivatives are unprecedented in the literature. / A região Amazônica é descrita por sua fauna, flora e microbiota, despertando o interesse de pesquisadores para o conhecimento dessa região. Tal interesse são pelas novas descobertas que afirmam a Amazônia como detentora de uma incrível biodiversidade, onde novas moléculas, com potencial para novos fármacos, são reportadas frequentemente. Entre as alternativas para os fármacos existentes no mercado, estão as semissínteses de moléculas orgânicas. Neste trabalho foram realizadas semissínteses a partir do Ácido Secalônico, da isocumarina Bergenina e do triterpeno Policarpol, substâncias bioativas isoladas, previamente, de um microorganismo e plantas da flora amazônica. Através de reações simples de modificação estrutural foram obtidos nove compostos, sendo identificados como: Ácido dibenzilsecalônico, dibenzilbergenina, 15-O-benzoilPolicarpol, 24-epoxi-Policarpol, 3-acetil- Policarpol, 15-acetil-Policarpol, 3,15-diacetil-Policarpol, 2,6,12,15-tetroxo- Policarpol. Adicionalmente foi isolado e caracterizado o intermediário de reação O-acildicicloexilisoureia. Este intermediário e os derivados do Policarpol são inéditos na literatura.

The covalent chemistry of individual reactants bound within a protein nanopore can be monitored by observing the ionic current flow through the pore, which acts as a nanoreactor responding to bond-making and bond-breaking events. However, chemistry investigated in this way has been largely confined to the reactions of thiolates, presented by the side chains of cysteine residues. The introduction of unnatural amino acids would provide a large variety of reactive side chains with which additional single-molecule chemistry could be investigated. An efficient method to incorporate unnatural amino acid is semisynthesis, which allows site-specific modification with a chemically-defined functional group. However, relatively little work has been done on engineered membrane proteins. This deficiency stems from attributes inherent to proteins that interact with lipid bilayer, notably the poor solubility in aqueous buffer. In the present work, four different derivatives α-hemolysin (αHL) monomer were obtained either by two- or three-way native chemical ligation. The semisynthetic αHL monomers were successfully refolded to heptameric pores and used as nanoreactors to study single-molecule chemistry. The semisynthetic pores show similar biophysical properties to native αHL pores obtained from an in vitro transcription and translation technique. Interestingly, when αHL pores with one semisynthetic subunit containing a terminal alkyne group were used to study Cu(I)-catalyzed azide-alkyne cycloaddition, a long-lived intermediate in the reaction was directly observed.

Thiostrepton (TS: TS; C72H85N19O18S5) is a thiazoline antibiotic that is effective against Gram-positive bacteria and the malarial parasite, Plasmodium falciparum. Tight binding of TS to the bacterial L11-23S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) complex of the large 50S ribosomal unit inhibits protein biosynthesis. The TS producing organism, Streptomyces azureus, biosynthesizes thiostrepton-resistance methyltransferase (TSR), an enzyme that uses S-adenosyl-L-methionine (AdoMet) as a methyl donor, to modify the TS target site. Methylation of A1067 (Escherichia coli ribosome numbering) by TSR circumvents TS binding. The S. azureus tsr gene was overexpressed in E. coli and the protein purified for biochemical characterization. Although the recombinant protein was produced in a soluble form, its tendency to aggregate made handling a challenge during the initial stages of establishing a purification protocol. Different purification conditions were screened to generate an isolation protocol that yields milligram quantities of protein with little aggregation and sufficient purity for crystallographic studies. Enzymological characterization of TSR was carried out using an assay to monitor AdoMet-dependent ([methyl-3H]-AdoMet) methylation of the rRNA substrate by liquid scintillation counting. During the optimization of assay, it was found that, although this method is frequently employed, it is very time and labour intensive. A scintillation proximity assay was investigated to evaluate whether it could be a method for collecting kinetic data, and was found that further optimization is required. Comparative sequence analysis of TSR has shown it to be a member of the novel Class IV SpoUT family of AdoMet-dependent MTases. Members of this class possess a non-canonical AdoMet binding site containing a deep trefoil knot. Selected SpoUT family proteins were used as templates to develop a TSR homology model for monomeric and dimeric forms. Validation of the homology models was performed with structural validation servers and the model was then used as the basis of ongoing mutagenesis experiments. The X-ray crystal structure of TSR bound with AdoMet (2.45 Å) was elucidated by our collaborators, Drs. Mark Dunstan and Graeme Conn (University of Manchester). This structure confirms TSR MTase’s membership in the SpoUT MTase family with a deep trefoil knot in the catalytic domain. The AdoMet bound in the crystal structure is in an extended conformation not previously observed in SpoUT MTases. RNA docking simulations revealed some features that may be relevant to binding and recognition of TSR to the L11 binding domain of the RNA substrate. Two structure-activity studies were conducted to investigate the TS-rRNA interaction and TS solubility. Computational analyses of TS conformations, molecular orbitals and dynamics provided insight into the possible modes of TS binding to rRNA. Single-site modification of TS was attempted, targeting the dehydroalanine and dehydrobutyrine residues of the antibiotic. These moieties were modified using the polar thiol, 2-mercaptoethanesulfonic acid (2-MESNA). Similar modifications had been previously used to improve solubility and bioavailability of antibiotics. The resulting analogue was structurally characterized (NMR and mass spectrometry) and showed antimicrobial activity against Bacillus subtilis and Staphylococcus aureus.

Thiostrepton (TS: TS; C72H85N19O18S5) is a thiazoline antibiotic that is effective against Gram-positive bacteria and the malarial parasite, Plasmodium falciparum. Tight binding of TS to the bacterial L11-23S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) complex of the large 50S ribosomal unit inhibits protein biosynthesis. The TS producing organism, Streptomyces azureus, biosynthesizes thiostrepton-resistance methyltransferase (TSR), an enzyme that uses S-adenosyl-L-methionine (AdoMet) as a methyl donor, to modify the TS target site. Methylation of A1067 (Escherichia coli ribosome numbering) by TSR circumvents TS binding. The S. azureus tsr gene was overexpressed in E. coli and the protein purified for biochemical characterization. Although the recombinant protein was produced in a soluble form, its tendency to aggregate made handling a challenge during the initial stages of establishing a purification protocol. Different purification conditions were screened to generate an isolation protocol that yields milligram quantities of protein with little aggregation and sufficient purity for crystallographic studies. Enzymological characterization of TSR was carried out using an assay to monitor AdoMet-dependent ([methyl-3H]-AdoMet) methylation of the rRNA substrate by liquid scintillation counting. During the optimization of assay, it was found that, although this method is frequently employed, it is very time and labour intensive. A scintillation proximity assay was investigated to evaluate whether it could be a method for collecting kinetic data, and was found that further optimization is required. Comparative sequence analysis of TSR has shown it to be a member of the novel Class IV SpoUT family of AdoMet-dependent MTases. Members of this class possess a non-canonical AdoMet binding site containing a deep trefoil knot. Selected SpoUT family proteins were used as templates to develop a TSR homology model for monomeric and dimeric forms. Validation of the homology models was performed with structural validation servers and the model was then used as the basis of ongoing mutagenesis experiments. The X-ray crystal structure of TSR bound with AdoMet (2.45 Å) was elucidated by our collaborators, Drs. Mark Dunstan and Graeme Conn (University of Manchester). This structure confirms TSR MTase’s membership in the SpoUT MTase family with a deep trefoil knot in the catalytic domain. The AdoMet bound in the crystal structure is in an extended conformation not previously observed in SpoUT MTases. RNA docking simulations revealed some features that may be relevant to binding and recognition of TSR to the L11 binding domain of the RNA substrate. Two structure-activity studies were conducted to investigate the TS-rRNA interaction and TS solubility. Computational analyses of TS conformations, molecular orbitals and dynamics provided insight into the possible modes of TS binding to rRNA. Single-site modification of TS was attempted, targeting the dehydroalanine and dehydrobutyrine residues of the antibiotic. These moieties were modified using the polar thiol, 2-mercaptoethanesulfonic acid (2-MESNA). Similar modifications had been previously used to improve solubility and bioavailability of antibiotics. The resulting analogue was structurally characterized (NMR and mass spectrometry) and showed antimicrobial activity against Bacillus subtilis and Staphylococcus aureus.