Mutations found in human cancer cells have been used to make enzymes that catalyse a reaction important in nylon production.

Hai Yan and his colleagues at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, identified stretches of amino acids from oxidoreductase enzymes with cancer-associated mutations. These mutations change the chemical reaction that the enzymes carry out on their substrates, molecules with a backbone of five carbon atoms. The researchers introduced these amino-acid residues into the active sites of related enzymes that act on substrates containing six carbon atoms. The resulting enzyme performed the desired cancer-associated reaction on six-carbon molecules, and could catalyse a reaction in the synthesis of adipic acid, a precursor of nylon.

The authors suggest that data from sequenced cancer genomes could be used to increase functional diversity in enzymes.

Nature Chem. Biol. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nchembio.1065 (2012)