‘Designer enzymes’ created by chemists

March 19, 2008 | Source: KurzweilAI

UCLA and the University of Washington chemists have created “designer enzymes” for generating reactions not possible with natural enzymes–a major milestone in computational chemistry and protein engineering.

The UCLA team used supercomputers to model the detailed mechanisms of chemical reactions and design the enzymes’ active site–the area of the enzymes in which the chemical reactions take place. The U of W team designed sequences of amino acids that folded to make the active sites. They also produced the enzymes.

Natural enzymes, which are relatively large protein molecules, are the powerful catalysts that control the reactions that sustain life. They play a central role in the chemical reactions involved in transforming food into essential nutrients, among many other critical functions.

UCLA News Release