Quantification of Bacillus Pasteurii Urease Secondary Structure by Factor Analysis of FT-IR Spectra

Soil urease plays an important role in agriculture, being responsible for the hydrolysis of urea, a fertilizer widely used in agriculture. This process, if not properly controlled, can cause damages to the superficial part of soil, on one side depleting it from nitrogen by volatilization and on the other side increasing the pH, thus making conditions not optimal for plant growth. Efficient inibitors can help facing this problem; however their design relies on the knowledge of the protein structure. As an intermediate step towards this goal, we have used FT-IR vibrational spectroscopy to determine the secondary structure of urease from Bacillus pasteurii.