Single enzyme electrocatalysis

Our research project

While redox proteins have been studied for over a century, several important fundamental questions remain open:

• What are the intrinsic rates of electron transfer in single redox proteins, and can they be controlled to manipulate catalytic properties?
• Are there temporal variations in the electron transfer rates, and can they be correlatedto conformational changes?
• What role does protein dynamics play in electron transfer and catalysis?

Studies of redox proteins at the single-molecule level are essential to answer these questions since this kind of effects would be averaged out in an ensemble of molecules. Electrochemical methods are naturally considered as an ideal approach to study processes of electron transfer. However, direct measurements of small electrical currents associated with single enzyme molecules are experimentally challenging. In this project we are working on the development of novel detection platforms enabling single-molecule studies of redox proteins.