Fundamental discovery casts enzymes in new light

Just as a breeze causes leaves, branches and ultimately the tree to move, enzymes moving at the molecular level perform hundreds of chemical processes that have a ripple effect necessary for life. Protein complexes are often viewed as static entities with their biological functions understood in terms of direct interactions, but that isn't the case, as emphasized in a paper published November 8 in the online, open-access journal PLoS Biology. The work shows that the amount of flexibility in a protein may itself be an important feature of enzyme function.

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