One of the most invasive Australian weeds is being touted as a potential economic crop, with benefits for the construction, mining and forestry industries, and potentially many First Nations communities.
Agriculture
Feb 20, 2024
0
508
Australian scientists have discovered an enzyme that converts air into energy. The finding, published today in the journal Nature, reveals that this enzyme uses the low amounts of the hydrogen in the atmosphere to create ...
Biochemistry
Mar 8, 2023
9
41992
A new artificial enzyme has shown it can chew through lignin, the tough polymer that helps woody plants hold their shape. Lignin also stores tremendous potential for renewable energy and materials.
Materials Science
May 31, 2022
3
903
Ever since the late 19th century, physicists have known about a counterintuitive property of some electric circuits called negative resistance. Typically, increasing the voltage in a circuit causes the electric current to ...
Scientists have engineered an enzyme which can digest some of our most commonly polluting plastics, providing a potential solution to one of the world's biggest environmental problems.
Biochemistry
Apr 16, 2018
8
7005
A diverse set of species, from snails to algae to amoebas, make programmable DNA-cutting enzymes called Fanzors—and a new study from scientists at MIT's McGovern Institute for Brain Research has identified thousands of ...
Molecular & Computational biology
Oct 13, 2023
0
6178
Cannabidiol, popularly known as CBD, gained mainstream fame for treating seizures with a strain of hemp called "Charlotte's Web." It was named for Charlotte Figi, a child with Dravet syndrome whose family was so desperate ...
Veterinary medicine
Mar 3, 2020
0
7
Vitamins A and C aren't just good for your health, they affect your DNA too. Researchers at the Babraham Institute and their international collaborators have discovered how vitamins A and C act to modify the epigenetic 'memory' ...
Cell & Microbiology
Oct 12, 2016
2
8
Degradation of pristine graphene occurs in the human body when interacting with a naturally occurring enzyme found in the lung, announced Graphene Flagship partners; the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), ...
Bio & Medicine
Aug 24, 2018
0
113
Plastic pollution is increasingly affecting the health of coasts and oceans. One well-known problem is plastic bottles made from polyethylene terephthalate, or PET.
Biochemistry
Sep 25, 2023
0
107
Enzymes are biomolecules that catalyze (i.e., increase the rates of) chemical reactions. Nearly all known enzymes are proteins. However, certain RNA molecules can be effective biocatalysts too. These RNA molecules have come to be known as ribozymes. In enzymatic reactions, the molecules at the beginning of the process are called substrates, and the enzyme converts them into different molecules, called the products. Almost all processes in a biological cell need enzymes to occur at significant rates. Since enzymes are selective for their substrates and speed up only a few reactions from among many possibilities, the set of enzymes made in a cell determines which metabolic pathways occur in that cell.
Like all catalysts, enzymes work by lowering the activation energy (Ea or ΔG‡) for a reaction, thus dramatically increasing the rate of the reaction. Most enzyme reaction rates are millions of times faster than those of comparable un-catalyzed reactions. As with all catalysts, enzymes are not consumed by the reactions they catalyze, nor do they alter the equilibrium of these reactions. However, enzymes do differ from most other catalysts by being much more specific. Enzymes are known to catalyze about 4,000 biochemical reactions. A few RNA molecules called ribozymes catalyze reactions, with an important example being some parts of the ribosome. Synthetic molecules called artificial enzymes also display enzyme-like catalysis.
Enzyme activity can be affected by other molecules. Inhibitors are molecules that decrease enzyme activity; activators are molecules that increase activity. Many drugs and poisons are enzyme inhibitors. Activity is also affected by temperature, chemical environment (e.g., pH), and the concentration of substrate. Some enzymes are used commercially, for example, in the synthesis of antibiotics. In addition, some household products use enzymes to speed up biochemical reactions (e.g., enzymes in biological washing powders break down protein or fat stains on clothes; enzymes in meat tenderizers break down proteins, making the meat easier to chew).
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA
