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Synthetic Molecules Emulate Enzyme Behavior
Posted by
samzenpus
on Wed Jul 02, 2008 10:11 PM
from the a-chemical-for-all-seasons dept.
from the a-chemical-for-all-seasons dept.
FiReaNGeL writes "Ohio State University chemists have created a synthetic catalyst that can fold its molecular structure into a specific shape for a specific job, similar to natural catalysts. In tests, the chemists caused the catalysts to twist one way or the other, either to form one chemical product or its mirror image. They confirmed the shape of the molecules at each step using techniques such as nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Being able to quickly produce a catalyst of a particular shape would be a boon for the pharmaceutical and chemical industries."
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Yay! (Score:3, Funny)
maybe it'll finally be cheap enough to ~cure~ things rather than just treat 'em.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Pharmaceutical companies can only sell a cure once. They can sell treatments indefinitely.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Why does everybody always say this, hinting about the possibility of conspiracy theory cover-ups and withheld cures? Why is it so hard to believe that some people actually are searching for cures?
If a company develops a cure for AIDS, cancer, or the common cold, then it stands to reason that the company is going to make a lot of money. While other companies are bumbling around with "treatments" and "therapies," this company is going to make a lot of short-term profit, and with the help of a patent office (o
Re:Yay! (Score:5, Interesting)
What's more satisfying: "we don't understand the disease well enough to cure it" or "those guys with more money than me are assholes"?
What's interesting is that research into a lot of auto immune issues is actually starting to get somewhere, so we might actually start seeing cures for stuff in the next decade or two.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Examples:
Malaria
Typhoid Fever
Chicken Pox
Measels
Polio
Tetanus
Diptheria
Yellow Fever
Small Pox...on and on...
Next up (hopefully) Diabetes, HIV Infection, Cancer, Herpes...etc... and we're making advances in all. The problem is is that we're vulnerable as humans. Eradicate one problem and something new will ultimately take its place.
Re: (Score:2)
Give a man a fish, he eats for one day.
Teach a man to fish, he eats for the rest of his life.
Sell a man a fish, you're rich -- to heck with the man :
Not just a boon, (Score:4, Interesting)
It would be the holy grail. Things like converting glucose to ATP in the body achieve ~70% efficiency. This is absolutely insane. If the scientists could accurately model and design the tertiary structure [wikipedia.org] of proteins at will then they could do things like making ethanol factories using minimal energy. This is extremely significant.
Until.... (Score:2, Troll)
I don't want to piss on a good idea, but powerful technologies can be bent to cause problems too.
Re:Not just a boon, (Score:5, Informative)
Things like converting glucose to ATP in the body achieve ~70% efficiency.
Glucose to ATP using glycolysis followed by cellular respiration using the electron transport, the most efficient process, is only about 40% efficient. The rest of the energy is released as heat, which is good for warm blooded creatures like ourselves. In babies, the brown fat makes cellular respiration even less efficient, which keeps them warm.
Parent
Re:Not just a boon, (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah maybe someday we can upgrade to something we can adjust.
90% efficiency when running (want to stay cool - stuff stops working well when the temperature goes up[1]), and 10% efficient when sitting on the couch watching TV - to stay warm and not get fat after eating all that junk food.
[1] "muscles tire because they get too hot"
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.03/bemore_pr.html [wired.com]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2354135.stm [bbc.co.uk]
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
a hint of deja vu (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I think this is fairly clearly overhyped. They are suggesting the following:
We can construct more flexible molecules to use as catalysts. More flexible molecules interact more easily with other molecules in the environment. Unfortunately, by reacting without selectivity, it is more likely to find unexpected side-effects. This would have no place in drug design, though it could plausibly be used in very controlled environments. Realistically, people tend to want a catalyst to take A->B, not to take A
Coming soon... (Score:2, Funny)
I have an idea for a catalyst (Score:5, Funny)
How about a catalyst that takes CO2, H2O and photon energy and converts it into sugar and oxygen? Then we could use another catalyst to convert the sugar into alcohol. *Runs off to the patent office*
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
But there's a lot more to brewing drinkable beer or liquor than just feeding sugar to yeast.
You old folk are always so picky. So long as it fucks me up, I'll drink/smoke/eat it :D
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Water, alcohol, taste and bubbles?
Alternate viewpoints (Score:3, Funny)
That's what the Ohio State chemists find most exciting: the molecule does not maintain only one shape.
See, that's how I'm different. They lost me at the Rockettes.
This is cool on many levels. (Score:3, Insightful)
At some level, it was only a matter of time: put the molecules together in the right order, and (generally) the form the right shape when left to fold by themselves.
But synthesis of enzymes and such has interesting ramifications for medicine (can't think of any enzyme-deficient diseases off the top of my head, but there must be some)
Now what would be *really* interesting is if they could do proteins in general. That would open up a whole world of life-saving drugs.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
(can't think of any enzyme-deficient diseases off the top of my head, but there must be some)
How about phenylketonuria [wikipedia.org], for one?
I'm skeptical (Score:5, Insightful)
First, they cannot "quickly produce a catalyst of a particular shape," but rather they are able to take one molecule and make it twist into either of two orientations. This isn't the holy grail of catalyst molecular engineering (to "give scientists a quick and easy way to get the catalyst that they want"); rather, it gives scientists a couple 'bonus' molecular shapes for each catalyst they synthesize. There is no indication that the ability to twist synthetic molecules means that scientists will have a significantly easier time discovering new catalysts that conform to the necessary shape. As TFA says, "[d]espite decades of research, scientists aren't sure exactly how this kind of propagation works." Why should searching for "a catalyst of a particular shape or function," involve any less trial and error than before?
Moreover, the scientists claim that "as long as there is even a slight chemical preference for one of the hands. . . . [t]he 'flexible glove' will find a way to make a better fit, and so it will assist in specifically making one of the mirror image forms." Yet there is no proof that this "chemical preference" necessarily results in the ideal molecular arrangement of the catalyst. In fact, trying to synthesize a molecule that is capable of folding into multiple useful shapes in response to specific chemical environments seems more difficult than synthesizing individual catalysts to each handle one function independently.
Again, I could be wrong, but I think this is only a very preliminary step in making more advanced synthetic catalysts, and not necessarily a way to design them faster.
Not that special... (Score:3, Informative)
Natural catalysts, such as enzymes in the human body that help us digest food, get around this problem by shape-shifting to suit the task at hand. (...)
Natural catalysts reconfigure themselves over and over again in response to different chemical cues -- as enzymes do in the body, for example.
Actually enzymes do a have a somewhat *fixed* fold for a specific (type of) reaction and don't just catalyse this then that etc. They can be highly selective for only one substance / functional chemical group or not. However they certainly don't reconfigure themselves (we're not talking about allosteric enzymes). The cell just produces a different set of enzymes to adjust to new conditions.
In tests, the chemists caused the catalysts to twist one way or the other, either to form one chemical product or its mirror image.
They better have this working 'error-free'. Having a mixture of both shapes can get you into big trouble (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalidomide).
"For many chemical reactions to work, molecules must be able to fit a catalyst like a hand fits a glove," RajanBabu said. "Our synthetic molecules are special because they're flexible. It doesn't matter if the hand is a small hand or a big hand, the 'glove' will change its shape to fit it, as long as there is even a slight chemical preference for one of the hands. The 'flexible glove' will find a way to make a better fit, and so it will assist in specifically making one of the mirror image forms."
I'm not sure this is so good - wouldn't you want them to behave like enzymes aswell, being highly selective? And last but not least there is no comparison offered to *real* enzymes in terms of 'speed' and what kind of reactions besides fatty acid hydrogenation are possible.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I'm sorry, I just can't let this one go... I may just be a lowly organic chemist, but there is nothing static about an enzyme. First, the obvious--conformational changes in response to pH, phosphorylation, ionic strength, etc. that turn on, turn off, or alter the functionality of an enzyme. And the even more obvious--the typical behavior of an enzyme is to alter conformation dynamically to stabilize transition states which lowers the activation barrier between two thermodynamic minima--the definition of a
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Flamebait?! Are you people kidding me?! That was a Homer Simpson quote! For the freaking love of Pete. Look, here's what was written:
"They confirmed the shape of the molecules at each step using techniques such as nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy."
Good freaking grief people. Get a sense of humor.