Alexander Scheeline

Department of Chemistry
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Biology consists of a network of reactants, products, and catalysts that, in turn, are made from the reactants and products. This topology (connectivity) leads to complex, chaotic dynamics. A small subset of reactants (enzymes and substrates) displays steady state kinetics. The full system is so complicated as to defy numerical understanding.

The research described here is at an intermediate scale--complicated enough to show non-steady-state (oscillatory) kinetics, but simple enough that full numerical modeling is possible. The systems chosen are oxidase and peroxidase enzymes together with their substrates and co-factors.

The entire arsenal of spectroscopic, electrochemical, and chromatographic tools must be used to make sense of the peroxidase-oxidase system. Examples of dynamical features understood from application of the various measurement tools will be given.  Use of chemometrics to indicate where models are deficient will also be demonstrated.

An extensive example will also be given of artifacts against which one must guard, and the erroneous conclusions one can reach if the nature of signals and noise is ignored.