Publication Date:
2018-12-14
Description:
Primordial sequence signatures in modern proteins imply ancestral origins tracing back to simple peptides. Although short peptides seldom adopt unique folds, metal ions might have templated their assembly into higher-order structures in early evolution and imparted useful chemical reactivity. Recapitulating such a biogenetic scenario, we have combined design and laboratory evolution to transform a zinc-binding peptide into a globular enzyme capable of accelerating ester cleavage with exacting enantiospecificity and high catalytic efficiency ( k cat / K M ~ 10 6 M –1 s –1 ). The simultaneous optimization of structure and function in a naïve peptide scaffold not only illustrates a plausible enzyme evolutionary pathway from the distant past to the present but also proffers exciting future opportunities for enzyme design and engineering.
Keywords:
Biochemistry
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Geosciences
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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