An Enzyme Movie 10 Years In The Making

Abstract

When lime Schlichting set out to capture scenes in the reaction pathway of cytochrome P450 enzyme to help explain how it works, little did she know that it would take 10 years to achieve her goal. Cytochromes P450 are ubiquitous heme-containing enzymes. According to Paul R. Ortiz de Montellano, an expert on heme proteins who is professor of pharmaceutical chemistry at the University of California, San Francisco, the cytochrome P450 family is involved in the biosynthesis of hormones, secondary metabolites, and antibiotics and in the metabolism of foreign compounds, including drugs. The enzymes are also potential catalysts for synthesis of fine chemicals and for removal of toxic materials from the environment. The enzymes catalyze the stereospecific addition of oxygen to carbonhydrogen bonds, a reaction that normally requires blowtorch to do nonspecifically, says Gregory A. Petsko, professor of biochemistry at Brandeis University, Waltham, Mass. That chemistry is remarkable, and one would love ...