Enzymes articles within Nature Chemistry

Featured

  • Article |

    The influence of protein motions on the chemical step of enzyme reactions is a contentious issue. Now, by constructing free-energy surfaces using an explicit solvent coordinate, it is shown that, although some structural flexibility is required, protein motions can be described as equilibrium fluctuations.

    • Rafael García-Meseguer
    • , Sergio Martí
    •  & Iñaki Tuñón

  • Article |

    Selective reaction of one C–H bond among many in complex organic molecules is a grand challenge for organic chemistry. Here, starting from an enzyme that oxidizes two positions in a steroid without bias, laboratory evolution is used to prepare mutants that can regio- and stereoselectively oxidize either position.

    • Sabrina Kille
    • , Felipe E. Zilly
    •  & Manfred T. Reetz

  • News & Views |

    Enzymes that selectively oxidize unactivated C–H bonds are capable of constructing complex molecules with high efficiency. A new member of this enzyme family is RedG, a Reiske-type oxygenase that catalyses chemically challenging cyclizations in the biosynthesis of prodiginine natural products.

    • Steven D. Bruner

  • Article |

    The reaction of enols and enolates with electrophiles is used extensively in synthesis. Here, protein engineering — substituting amino acid residues in an enzyme active site — is used to produce biocatalysts for the control of enolate chemistry. The adapted enzymes enable stereoselective C–C bond formation yielding N-heterocycles in high diastereomeric excess by the reaction of trisubstituted-enolates.

    • Refaat B. Hamed
    • , J. Ruben Gomez-Castellanos
    •  & Christopher J. Schofield

  • News & Views |

    Testing for enzymes is important for diagnosing various medical conditions but can be problematic because of the complexity of physiological media such as blood. Now, a method of detecting phospholipases has been developed that neatly couples their concentration with the aggregation of gold nanoparticles.

    • Nicholas A. Melosh

  • News & Views |

    Compression of the active sites of enzymes has been linked to the bulk of amino acid side chains, but now experiments highlight that the harder we look, the more curious the relationship between protein structure and function becomes.

    • Judith P. Klinman

  • News & Views |

    Enzymes keep their catalytic reactivity under fine control, letting appropriate molecules approach their active sites to perform reactions. Now, studies of calixarenes attached to gold clusters to emulate this behaviour in synthetic systems suggest that the key to accessibility could be a matter of the relative sizes of ligands and metal clusters.

    • Graham J. Hutchings

  • Research Highlights |

    A vanadium-containing nitrogenase enzyme can reduce carbon monoxide to ethane and propane.

    • Neil Withers

  • News & Views |

    Small-molecule enzyme-inhibitors often display insufficient affinity and selectivity for their targets causing unwanted side effects when used as drugs. Molecularly imprinted polymers prepared using the enzyme as a template could offer a solution.

    • Börje Sellergren

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