Enzymes articles from across Nature Portfolio

Despite the therapeutic interest in targeting CDK2, developing a selective CDK2 inhibitor has been challenging. Here, the authors describe a potent and selective CDK2 inhibitor that binds an allosteric pocket, preventing activating protein partners from binding and showing potential as a contraceptive.

Ribosomal incorporation of non-α-amino acid monomers into proteins is largely restricted to in vitro translation. Now, pyrrolysyl-transfer RNA synthetase variants have been shown to acylate tRNAs with α-thio acids, malonic acids, and N-formyl amino acids. This work represents a key step towards the programmed ribosomal synthesis of sequence-defined non-protein polymers in cellulo.

The Rpd3L HDAC complex is an ancient chromatin-modifying complex found in diverse eukaryotes. Here, authors describe the cryo-EM structure of the yeast complex and show that key features are preserved in the human complex.

Enzyme conformational plasticity plays an important part in expanding the functional diversity of a limited repertoire of sequences. This Review discusses the role of flexible loops in enzyme evolution, focusing on both examples from natural evolution and engineering success stories.