Identifying new types of inhibitors in quinone binding sites in photosynthetic enzymes

随着全球人口的不断增长，在维护未来粮食安全的同时，对农业的效率和可持续性的需求也越来越大。具有醌结合位点的酶作为农用化学品的靶标发挥着关键作用，但其抑制模式尚不清楚，发现新的抑制剂最主要的是通过大规模筛选。在这个项目中，我们将使用基于电子顺磁共振(EPR)的新方法来研究醌位点抑制剂的结合模式，并利用这一知识来识别新的抑制剂。我们的靶酶包括已建立的靶标(光系统II)和一个全新的靶标(光合作用复合体I/NDH)。

With the ever-rising global population, there is an increasing need for efficiency and sustainability in agriculture whilst preserving future food security. Enzymes with quinone binding sites play a key role as targets for agrochemicals, but the modes of inhibition are not well understood, and the discovery of new inhibitors occurs most and foremost through large-scale screening. In this project, we will investigate the mode of binding of quinone-site inhibitors using novel electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) based approaches and use this knowledge to identify new inhibitors. Our target enzymes consist of both established targets (photosystem II) and a completely novel target (photosynthetic complex I / NDH).