Pain-reliever ibuprofen makes enzyme oxidize styrene with hydrogen peroxide

Enzymes can be efficient biocatalysts for organic synthesis, but often only work on a small range of specific substrates. Yoshihito Watanabe and colleagues at Nagoya University and RIKEN (Japan) have tricked enzymes into catalyzing reactions between molecules of choice, they report in Chemistry—An Asian Journal. By using organic acids, including the pain reliever ibuprofen, they mimicked the natural substrate.

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