Using a clever chemogenetic suppression analysis, the authors provide compelling evidence that an RNA enzyme uses general acid catalysis. Their approach, which merges chemical substitution with enzyme ...

Recent crystallographic and functional analyses of RNA enzymes have raised the possibility that the purine and pyrimidine nucleobases may function as general acid-base catalysts. However, this mode of ...

University of Groningen chemists have created a new enzyme with an unnatural amino acid as its active centre. They made the enzyme by modifying an antibiotic binding protein which normally acts as a ...

Bifunctional acid−base catalysts are highly desirable for industrially relevant chemical processes. Owing to their ability to activate electrophiles and nucleophiles simultaneously, they allow the ...

Scientists have used a new instrument to map an enzyme that could play an important role in anti-cancer drug development. Enzymes are catalysts that speed up chemical reactions in living organisms and ...

Enzymology is the study of enzymes and enzyme-catalyzed reactions. Enzymes are biological catalysts that accelerate the rate of biological reactions. They can also perform multiple reactions ...

Researchers have captured real-time "molecular movies" showing how an enzyme changes shape during catalysis. The study was published in Nature Communications. Subscribe to our newsletter for the ...

(Phys.org)—A team of researchers affiliated with several institutions in France has discovered an algal photoenzyme that uses blue light to convert fatty acids to hydrocarbons. In their paper ...

Chemists have long known that catalytic Lewis acidic and Lewis basic sites on metal and metal oxide surfaces help spark a range of reactions that are important in industrial chemical and fuel ...

Which came first, nucleic acids or proteins? This question is molecular biology's version of the "chicken-or-the-egg" riddle. Genes made of nucleic acids (DNA or RNA) contain the instructions for ...