Designing artificial enzymes by intuition and computation.
The rational design of artificial enzymes, either by applying physico-chemical intuition of protein structure and function or with the aid of computational methods, is a promising area of research with the potential to tremendously impact medicine, industrial chemistry and energy production. Designed proteins also provide a powerful platform for dissecting enzyme mechanisms of natural systems. Artificial enzymes have come a long way from simple α-helical peptide catalysts to proteins that facilitate multistep chemical reactions designed by state-of-the-art computational methods. Looking forward, we examine strategies employed by natural enzymes that could be used to improve the speed and selectivity of artificial catalysts.
Robert Wood Johnson Medical School - UMDNJ Biochemistry, Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine, 679 Hoes Lane West, Piscataway, New Jersey 08854, USA. nanda@cabm.rutgers.edu
Vikas
V
Nanda
Ronald L
RL
Koder
D055162:Biocatalysis; D020134:Catalytic Domain; D019295:Computational Biology; D004798:Enzymes / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000378:metabolism; D008958:Models, Molecular; D017434:Protein Structure, Tertiary
D004798:Enzymes