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Nature 458, 840-841 (16 April 2009) | doi:10.1038/458840a; Published online 15 April 2009

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Biochemistry: Anchors away

Maria Paola Costi1 & Stefania Ferrari1

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Nature often adopts several approaches to crack the same problem. The finding that the mechanism of a crucial enzyme in certain disease-causing bacteria differs from that in mammals offers scope for drug discovery.

On page 919 of this issue, Koehn et al.1 propose that, in certain microorganisms, a previously unknown biochemical mechanism underpins the function of an enzyme that is essential to the microorganisms' survival. In mammals, the activity of this enzyme — thymidylate synthase — depends on an 'anchor' in its active site that binds covalently to the enzyme's substrate.

  1. Maria Paola Costi and Stefania Ferrari are in the Department of Pharmaceutical Science, Universitá degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia, via Campi 183, Modena 41100, Italy.
    Email: costimp@unimore.it
    Email: stefania.ferrari@unimore.it

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