Cited by 98Protein Structure and DynamicsEnzyme Structure and FunctionChemical Reaction Mechanisms

Choreographing an enzyme's dance

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Villali, Janice, Kern, Dorothee·2010·Current Opinion in Chemical Biology

Abstract

While ground state structures combined with chemical tools and enzyme kinetics deliver useful information on possible chemical mechanisms of enzyme catalysis, they do not unravel the finely balanced energy inventory to explain the impressive rate enhancement of enzymes. For this goal, a complete description of enzyme catalysis in the form of an energy landscape is needed. Since the rate of catalysis is determined by the climb over a sequence of energy barriers, we focus here on the critical question of transition pathways. A combination of time-resolved NMR and simulation deliver a glimpse into how proteins can so efficiently move within the ensemble of the native conformations while avoiding unfolding during that journey. The loss of energy due to breakage of native contacts is compensated by non-native transient hydrogen bonds during the transition thereby 'holding on' to the energy until the new native contacts form that define the alternate functional state. The use of kinetic isotope effects (KIE) to study the chemical step show that coordinated atomic fluctuations of the protein component dictate the probability of 'correct' distance and orientation, due to its extreme sensitivity to distance. The examples here stress the point that highly choreographed conformational sampling together with chemical integrity is a prerequisite for efficient enzyme catalysis.

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Authors
Villali, J., & Kern, D.
Affiliations
Howard Hughes Medical Institute (US)
Corresponding author
Kern, Dorothee
Venue
Current Opinion in Chemical Biology
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2010-10
Volume
14
Issue
5
Pages
636-643
ISSN
1367-5931 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2020464495
Cited by
98
References
58
Citations by year
2025: 1 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 6 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 6 · 2016: 4 · 2015: 10 · 2014: 11 · 2013: 14 · 2012: 18
FWCI
1.09
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Current Opinion in Chemical Biology (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
Funders
  • Howard Hughes Medical Institute
  • National Institute of General Medical Sciences (T32GM007596, GM 67963, GM62117, R01GM062117, R01GM067963)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Protein Structure and Dynamics
  • Physical Sciences › Materials Science › Materials Chemistry › Enzyme Structure and Function
  • Physical Sciences › Chemistry › Organic Chemistry › Chemical Reaction Mechanisms
Keywords
enzyme catalysis, energy landscape, transition state, conformational dynamics, protein conformational sampling, kinetic isotope effects, protein flexibility, time-resolved NMR, molecular dynamics simulation
MeSH terms
Animals, Enzymes, Humans, Hydrogen, Kinetics, Purine-Nucleoside Phosphorylase, Thermodynamics, Biocatalysis

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