Molecular dynamics of calcium pumping and regulation in skeletal and cardiac sarcoplasmic reticulum

The goal of this thesis is to understand the fundamental molecular motions responsible for calcium pumping and regulation in skeletal and cardiac sarcoplasmic reticulum. My approach to this problem utilizes a wide range of techniques, including protein chemistry and enzyme kinetics, but my forte is site-directed spectroscopic probes. After attaching phosphorescent probes to the Ca-ATPase, the integral membrane protein responsible for active transport of calcium, I performed time-resolved anisotropy measurements to monitor directly the molecular motion of the protein. Previous studies on this system used erythrosin 5...