Poster Award Bernhard Gasselhuber

His poster shows novel insights into the class of bifunctional catalase-peroxidases. These metalloenzymes comprise two different enzymatic activities within one unique active site. A unique posttranslational modification enables them to dismutate hydrogen peroxide at high rates. The investigations focus on a eukaryotic extracellular catalase-peroxidase, which is predominantly present in pathogenic fungi and seems to play a distinct role in plant disease. The extracellular enzyme of the so-called “rice blast fungus” Magnaporthe grisea is scrutinized for spectroscopic and structural details. Structural and mechanistic insights lead to a better understanding of this enzyme group and might improve modern pest management. This work is supported by the FWF and the PhD program „BioToP – Biomolecular Technology of Proteins“ and supervised by Prof. Christian Obinger. Website of the PhD program BioToP: http://biotop.boku.ac.at/