Proteases as powerful catalysts for organic synthesis

Abstract

Enzymes are the catalysts of life. In fact, each biochemical reaction of cell metabolism requires catalysis by a specific enzyme to proceed at the pace required to sustain life. Enzymes are protein molecules that have evolved to perform efficiently under the mild conditions required to preserve the functionality and integrity of biological systems, and so can be considered as catalysts that have been optimized through evolution to perform their physiological task. Enzymes are capable of catalyzing a wide range of chemical reactions and it is not presumptuous to state that any organic chemical reaction already described might have an enzyme able to catalyze it. In fact, nature is an unlimited source of enzymes; to get the right enzyme for a certain chemical reaction is then a matter of searching, and this is certainly challenging and exciting if one realizes that only a very small fraction of all living forms have already been isolated. Moreover, it is now possible to obtain DNA metagenomic pools from the environment without requiring to know the organism from which it comes and then express it into a suitable host organism, and also to perform genetic remodeling of structural genes by site-directed mutagenesis.