Studies of changes in the structure of xylose/glucose isomerase induced by high pressure

Enzymes processing carbohydrates are important for many industrial applications, especially in the food industry (food processing). Pressurisation is often applied in food processing to modulate enzyme specificity and catalytic properties. However, the behaviour of proteins under high-pressure is not fully understood yet. To date, only 242 structures made by X-ray diffraction have been deposited in the Protein Data Bank, which represents 1.2‰ of all available structures. Results show that pressure fairly uniformly destabilises the protein structures, modulating their catalytic properties. In this proposal we aim to study the impact of high-pressure on crystals of model protein - glucose/xylose isomerase from Streptomyces rubiginosus, which will involve investigating freezing under high-pressure protein monocrystals, using the diffraction of X-rays.