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Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

Spring 2023

Academic Department

Biological Sciences

Abstract

Human carboxylesterases (CESs) are enzymes that are responsible for the metabolism of many important pharmaceuticals. Although CESs are key players in the hydrolysis of many ester-containing drugs, they remain understudied. Our group hypothesizes that this is primarily because there are few methods capable of reporting activity in live cells. Here, I report a new series of fluorogenic chemical tools to study the CES activity of one of the two major CESs in humans, CES1, in live cells. MCP-Me, MCP-Et, and MCP-iPr utilize the same carbonate group of a previously developed chemical tool in our group, FCP-1, and work to mimic the substrates of common drugs to study CES1 activity in vitro. By improving methods used to study CES1 activity, we can improve the individual efficacy of pharmaceuticals by ensuring prescribed drugs are compatible with the patient’s metabolic enzymes activity.

Comments

This Honors College undergraduate thesis was a winner of the 2023 Booth Library Excellence in Research and Creativity Award.

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