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SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY

Enzyme assemblies on demand

Nature Chemical Biology volume 18, pages 436–438 (2022)Cite this article

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Natural enzyme complexes can rapidly change configurations to respond to intracellular cues. Now CRISPR enzymes and programmable RNA scaffolds allow synthetic enzyme complexes to be assembled and disassembled on demand.

Cells require hundreds of different chemical reactions to provide the energy and molecular building blocks necessary for life. These reactions are grouped into metabolic pathways that are tightly regulated to ensure that cells make efficient use of available resources as environmental conditions change. Many reaction pathways are coordinated by assemblies of enzymes tethered to one another in complexes known as metabolons1. Metabolons increase pathway efficiency by ensuring that reaction intermediates can be handed off quickly to neighboring enzymes, reducing diffusive losses and the release of toxic intermediates. Furthermore, metabolons provide the ability to dynamically tune pathway activity through the rapid assembly or disassembly of the complex in response to molecular signals. In this issue of Nature Chemical Biology, Mitkas et al. describe synthetic metabolons whose activity is controlled dynamically by RNA2. The authors demonstrate that the synthetic metabolons can be turned on or off in response to RNA binding, and they apply them to increase production of the plant hormone indole-3-acetic acid by nearly an order of magnitude in Escherichia coli.

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Fig. 1: Dynamic metabolons enable on-demand assembly and disassembly of enzyme complexes.

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  1. Department of Biomedical Engineering, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA

    Alexander A. Green

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  1. Alexander A. Green
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Correspondence to Alexander A. Green.

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Competing interests

A.A.G. is a cofounder of En Carta Diagnostics.

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Green, A.A. Enzyme assemblies on demand. Nat Chem Biol 18, 436–438 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41589-022-01021-7

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