UCSD Researchers Claim Enzyme Evolution Not Yet Perfect

In a new study, published in the journal Science, researchers at University of California, San Diego claimed that a majority of enzymes continue to be sloppy and promiscuous, triggering a number of chemical reactions in the body cells. In this study, the research team, led by Bernhard Palsson, Galetti Professor of Bioengineering at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering, brought together decades of work on the behavior of individual enzymes to produce a genome-scale model of E. coli metabolism and report that at least 37 percent of its enzymes catalyze multiple metabolic reactions that occur in an actively growing cell. “We’ve been able to stitch all of the enzymes together into one giant model, giving us a holistic view of what has been driving the evolution of enzymes and found that it isn’t quite what we’ve thought it to be,” said Palsson. When organisms evolve, it is the genes or proteins that change. Therefore, gene and protein evolution has classically been studied one gene at a time. However in this work, Palsson and his colleagues, introduce an important paradigm shift by demonstrating that the evolution of individual proteins and enzymes is influenced by the function of all of the other enzymes in an organism, and how they all work together to support the growth rate of the cell.



Source-Eurekalert