Principles of antibody catalysis

✍ Scribed by Richard A. Lerner; Stephen J. Benkovic

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1988
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 803 KB
• Volume: 9
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0265-9247
• DOI: 10.1002/bies.950090402

✦ Synopsis

Sum ma ry

Antibodies have now been shown to catalyze a variety of chemical transformations, including hydrolytic, concerted, and bimolecular reactions. The inherent chirality of the antibody binding pocket has been exploited to exert precise stereochemical control over their catalyzed reactions. The mechanisms by which antibodies catalyze reactions are not expected to difler in any general way from those of natural enzymes. Antibodies use their binding energy to stabilize species of higher free energy which appear along the reaction coordinate or efect general acidlbase catalysis. The advent of catalytic antibodies promises new catalysts that extend the range of catalysis by proteins to chemical transformations that were not required during the evolution of enzymes.