Scientists at the Universities of Bristol and Newcastle have uncovered the secret of the 'Mona Lisa of chemical reactions' -- in a bacterium that lives at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.
It is hoped the discovery could lead to the development of new antibiotics and other medical treatments.
The Diels-Alder reaction, discovered by Nobel Prize-wining chemists Otto Diels and Kurt Alder, is one of the most powerful chemical reactions known, and is used extensively by synthetic chemists to produce many important molecules, including antibiotics, anti-cancer drugs and agrochemicals.
However, there has been much debate and controversy about whether nature uses the reaction to produce its own useful molecules. If it does, the identity of the biological catalysts (enzymes) responsible for performing this reaction have remained a mystery until now.
Some candidate natural 'Diels-Alderases' have been identified, but these have either been shown not to perform the reaction, or the evidence that they catalyse a Diels-Alder reaction is ambiguous.
Now, researchers at BrisSynBio, a BBSRC/EPSRC Synthetic Biology Research Centre at the University of Bristol and the School of Biology at Newcastle University have conclusively shown that a true 'Diels-Alderase' (Diels-Alder enzyme) exists. They have also established in atomic detail how it catalyses the reaction.
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