Mathematical model reveals behavior of cellular enzymes

Everything a cell does, from dividing in two to migrating to a different part of the body, is controlled by enzymes that chemically modify other proteins in the cell. Researchers at Princeton University have devised a new ...

Anti-aging molecule NAD+ gets a boost from blocking an enzyme

Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) is a major player in nutrition today. Studies have shown that NAD+ concentrations decrease during aging and that recovering the body's levels of NAD+ can prolong both health span and ...

Understanding key enzyme's role in embryonic development

The catalytic activity of an enzyme called Set1A—a protein that is essential to the viability of embryonic stem cells (ESCs)—is not required for ESC self-renewal, according to a Northwestern Medicine study published in ...

Engineering the P450 enzyme to perform new reactions

Enzymes, the micro machines in our cells, can evolve to perform new tasks when confronted with novel situations. But what if you want an enzyme to do an entirely different job—one that it would never have to do in a cell? ...

Study finds new moves in protein's evolution

Highlighting an important but unexplored area of evolution, scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have found evidence that, over hundreds of millions of years, an essential protein has evolved chiefly by changing ...

It takes a(n academic) village to determine an enzyme's function

Scientists have sequenced the genomes of nearly 6,900 organisms, but they know the functions of only about half of the protein-coding genes thus far discovered. Now a multidisciplinary effort involving 15 scientists from ...

Selection drives functional evolution of large enzyme families

Researchers at Umeå University, together with researchers at the Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, show in a new study how natural selection drives functional evolution of a large protein family in conifer ...

Discovery of the missing link in evolution of bioluminescence

With bioluminescence—the process that makes fireflies glow—now a mainstay in medical research, scientists are reporting discovery of a "missing link" of its evolution, which represents one of the deepest mysteries about ...

DNA catalysts do the work of protein enzymes

(Phys.org) —Illinois chemists have used DNA to do a protein's job, creating opportunities for DNA to find work in more areas of biology, chemistry and medicine than ever before.

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