enzyme-chemistry
Enzyme chemistry is the study of the structure, function, and mechanisms of enzymes—biological catalysts that drive nearly every biochemical reaction in living cells. In plant science, understanding enzyme chemistry is essential for unraveling how plants synthesize complex molecules such as pigments, hormones, cell wall components, and secondary metabolites. Insights into plant enzyme activity enable researchers to engineer crops with improved nutritional profiles, stress tolerance, and resistance to pests or disease.
PubMed · 2026-04-08
Scientists have reviewed how a family of iron-containing enzymes found in living organisms — including plants — activate oxygen to drive chemical reactions essential for growth, defense, and the breakdown of natural compounds. These enzymes use surprisingly diverse structural tricks to do the same fundamental job.
Two major structural 'scaffolds' — the 2-His-1-carboxylate facial triad and alternative 3-His or 4-His motifs — allow nonheme iron enzymes to activate oxygen through distinct chemical pathways, greatly expanding the range of reactions they can catalyze.
Dinuclear (two-iron) enzyme families use cooperative metal-metal interactions to achieve multi-electron oxidation chemistry that single-iron enzymes cannot, enabling more complex transformations in natural product biosynthesis.
Newly characterized enzyme structures in natural product biosynthetic pathways show non-standard metal coordination and unexpected substrate selectivity, revealing that evolution has repeatedly repurposed this enzyme family for novel chemistry.