BIOL 200 Lecture Notes - Reaction Rate, Organic Chemistry, Daniel E. Koshland Jr.
28 Mar 2013
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Document Summary
Enzymes are in general globular proteins and range from just 62 amino acid residues in size, for the monomer of 4-oxalocrotonate tautomerase, to over 2,500 residues in the animal fatty acid synthase. A small number of rna-based biological catalysts exist, with the most common being the ribosome; these are referred to as either rna-enzymes or ribozymes. The activities of enzymes are determined by their three-dimensional structure. However, although structure does determine function, predicting a novel enzyme"s activity just from its structure is a very difficult problem that has not yet been solved. Most enzymes are much larger than the substrates they act on, and only a small portion of the enzyme (around 2 4 amino acids) is directly involved in catalysis. The region that contains these catalytic residues, binds the substrate, and then carries out the reaction is known as the active site. Enzymes can also contain sites that bind cofactors, which are needed for catalysis.
