RRM analysis of protoporphyrinogen oxidase

Enzymes are crucial in accelerating metabolic reactions in living organisms. Protoporphyrinogen oxidase (PpOI) is an enzyme that catalyses the production of protoporphyrin IX (PpIX), a protein used in a cancer treatment known as photodynamic therapy (PDT). In this study, a structure-function analysis of PpOI was carried out using the Resonant Recognition Model (RRM), a physico-mathematical approach for analysis of proteins interactions. This method is based on the finding that the distribution of delocalised electron energies along the protein plays a crucial role in determining the protein's biological activity. Two digital signal processing (DSP) methods were used: Fourier Transform (FT) and Continuous Wavelet Transform (CWT). Here we have determined the characteristic frequencies and the "hot spot" amino acids, and predicted the location of proteins' active site(s). Several proteins that potentially belong to the PpOI functional group were also analysed to distinguish their viability in this role.