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Birth of an enzyme
Date:3/24/2008

Mankind triumphed in a recent 'competition' against nature when scientists succeeded in creating a new type of enzyme for a reaction for which no naturally occurring enzyme has evolved. This achievement opens the door to the development of a variety of potential applications in medicine and industry.

Enzymes are, without a doubt, a valuable model for understanding the intricate works of nature. These molecular machines which without them, life would not exist are responsible for initiating chemical reactions within the body. Millions of years of natural selection have fine-tuned the activity of such enzymes, allowing chemical reactions to take place millions of times faster. In order to create artificial enzymes, a comprehensive understanding of the structure of natural enzymes, their mode of action, as well as advanced protein engineering techniques is needed. A team of scientists from the University of Washington, Seattle, and the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel, made a crucial breakthrough toward this endeavor. Their findings have recently been published in the scientific journal Nature.

Enzymes are biological catalysts that are made from a string of amino acids, which fold into specific three-dimensional protein structures. The scientists aim was to create an enzyme for a specific chemical reaction whereby a proton (a positively charged hydrogen atom) is removed from carbon a highly demanding reaction and rate-determining step in numerous processes for which no enzymes currently exist, but which would be beneficial in helping to speed up the reaction. During the first heat of the 'competition,' the research team designed the 'heart' of the enzymatic machine the active site where the chemical reactions take place.

The second heat of the competition was to design the backbone of the enzyme, i.e., to determine the sequence of the 200 amino acids that make up the structure of the protein. This was no easy feat seeing as
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Contact: Yivsam Azgad
news@weizmann.ac.il
972-893-43856
Weizmann Institute of Science
Source:Eurekalert

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