The heat released during catalytic turnover enhances the diffusion of an enzyme

Condensed Matter journal club

The heat released during catalytic turnover enhances the diffusion of an enzyme

  • Event time: 11:30am
  • Event date: 9th October 2015
  • Speaker: (School of Physics & Astronomy, University of Edinburgh)
  • Location: Room 2511,

Event details

Abstract

Recent studies have shown that the diffusivity of enzymes increases in a substrate-dependent manner during catalysis. Although this observation has been reported and characterized for several different systems the precise origin of this phenomenon is unknown. Calorimetric methods are often used to determine enthalpies from enzyme-catalysed reactions and can therefore provide important insight into their reaction mechanisms. The ensemble averages involved in traditional bulk calorimetry cannot probe the transient effects that the energy exchanged in a reaction may have on the catalyst. Here we obtain single-molecule fluorescence correlation spectroscopy data and analyse them within the framework of a stochastic theory to demonstrate a mechanistic link between the enhanced diffusion of a single enzyme molecule and the heat released in the reaction. We propose that the heat released during catalysis generates an asymmetric pressure wave that results in a differential stress at the protein-solvent interface that transiently displaces ththe centre-of-mass of the enzyme (chemoacoustic effect). This novel perspective on how enzymes respond to the energy released during catalysis suggests a possible effect of the heat of reaction on the structural integrity and internal degrees of freedom of the enzyme.
Nature 517 227-230 (2015)
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Counter Argument Paper
Enhanced Diffusion of Enzymes that Catalyze Exothermic Reactions
author = Ramin Golestanian
abstract Enzymes have been recently found to exhibit enhanced diffusion due to their catalytic activities. A recent experiment [C. Riedel et al., Nature (London) 517, 227 (2015)] has found evidence that suggests this phenomenon might be controlled by the degree of exothermicity of the catalytic reaction involved. Four mechanisms that can lead to this effect, namely, self-thermophoresis, boost in kinetic energy, stochastic swimming, and collective heating are critically discussed, and it is shown that only the last two can be strong enough to account for the observations. The resulting quantitative description is used to examine the biological significance of the effect.
PRL 115 article 108102 (2015)
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Authors

Clement Riedel, Ronen Gabizon, Christian A. M. Wilson, Kambiz Hamadani, Konstantinos Tsekouras, Susan Marqusee, Steve Pressé & Carlos Bustamante

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