Superoxide biosensing with engineered cytochrome c

Several mutation positions have been chosen for introducing positively charged lysines in human cytochrome c (cyt c) with the aim of increasing the reaction rate with superoxide radicals (SO) and thus, the sensitivity of an electrochemical cyt c based SO biosensor. The impact of the mutations on structural and redox properties as well as on the reaction rate with SO are verified. Four mutants show a higher reaction rate with the radical compared to the wild type. These mutants are used for the construction of SO sensors based on thiol-modified gold electrodes and covalently fixed proteins. The E66K mutant electrode has a clearly higher sensitivity in comparison to the wildtype based sensor.