The Development of Enzyme Catalytic Efficiency: An Experimental Approach
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Excerpt
Enzymes are formidably efficient catalysts that mediate specific chemical transformations at rates rarely approached by even the best of man-made catalytic assemblies. From one angle, the challenge for the physical-organic chemist is to try to delineate the reaction mechanism and to understand the chemical and physical origins of the large rate enhancements that we observe. From a more biological viewpoint, however, the problem is to understand how, over evolutionary time, enzymes have become so effective. These two questions are related, of course, and if we could trace the development of catalytic efficiency, we should be better able to understand the nature of enzyme catalysis as we find it today. In this paper, we outline the first steps of an attempt to monitor the improvement in catalytic efficiency of an enzyme as its gene is mutagenized at random and more efficient catalysts are selected for.
Some years ago, following the determination...
