Structure and Cooperativity in Substrate-Enzyme Interactions: Perspectives on Enzyme Engineering and Inhibitor Design

ACS Chem Biol. 2022 Feb 18;17(2):266-280. doi: 10.1021/acschembio.1c00500. Epub 2022 Jan 18.

Abstract

Enzyme-based synthetic chemistry provides a green way to synthesize industrially important chemical scaffolds and provides incomparable substrate specificity and unmatched stereo-, regio-, and chemoselective product formation. However, using biocatalysts at an industrial scale has its challenges, like their narrow substrate scope, limited stability in large-scale one-pot reactions, and low expression levels. These limitations can be overcome by engineering and fine-tuning these biocatalysts using advanced protein engineering methods. A detailed understanding of the enzyme structure and catalytic mechanism and its structure-function relationship, cooperativity in binding of substrates, and dynamics of substrate-enzyme-cofactor complexes is essential for rational enzyme engineering for a specific purpose. This Review covers all these aspects along with an in-depth categorization of various industrially and pharmaceutically crucial bisubstrate enzymes based on their reaction mechanisms and their active site and substrate/cofactor-binding site structures. As the bisubstrate enzymes constitute around 60% of the known industrially important enzymes, studying their mechanism of actions and structure-activity relationship gives significant insight into deciding the targets for protein engineering for developing industrial biocatalysts. Thus, this Review is focused on providing a comprehensive knowledge of the bisubstrate enzymes' structure, their mechanisms, and protein engineering approaches to develop them into industrial biocatalysts.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Review

MeSH terms

  • Biocatalysis
  • Catalysis
  • Catalytic Domain
  • Enzymes* / metabolism
  • Protein Engineering*
  • Substrate Specificity

Substances

  • Enzymes