Artificial enzymes

An artificial enzyme is a synthetic, organic molecule or ion that recreate some function of an enzyme. The area promises to deliver catalysis at rates and selectivity observed in many enzymes.

Enzyme catalysis of chemical reactions occur with high selectivity and rate. The substrate is activated in a small part of the enzyme's macromolecule called the active site. There, the binding of a substrate close to functional groups in the enzyme causes catalysis by so-called proximity effects. It is possible to create similar catalysts from small molecule by combining substrate-binding with catalytic functional groups. Classically artificial enzymes bind substrates using receptors such as cyclodextrin, crown ethers, and calixarene.

Artificial enzymes based on amino acids or peptides as characteristic molecular moieties have expanded the field of artificial enzymes or enzyme mimics. For instance, scaffolded histidine residues mimics certain metalloproteins and -enzymes such as hemocyanin, tyrosinase, and catechol oxidase).

Artificial enzymes have been designed from scratch via a computational strategy using Rosetta. In December 2014, it was announced that active enzymes had been produced that were made from artificial molecules which do not occur anywhere in nature. In 2017, a book chapter entitled "Artificial Enzymes: The Next Wave" was published.[1]

Nanozymes are nanomaterials with enzyme-like characteristics. They have been widely explored for various applications, such as biosensing, bioimaging, tumor diagnosis and therapy, antibiofouling.

In 1996 and 1997, Dugan et al. discovered the superoxide dismutase (SOD) mimicking activities of fullerene derivatives.

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