49 questions · 34 sources · 0 syntheses
Enzymes and Enzymology
The structure, function, and mechanism of biological catalysts.
Source-derived questions
Questions extracted from the papers in this topic, excluding the curated questions above.
- How did Altman's work on ribonuclease P independently point to the same conclusion as Cech's intron studies?
- How did Arthur Kornberg demonstrate that DNA could replicate itself in a test tube?
- How did Buchner's cell-free yeast extract accidentally disprove the vitalist theory of fermentation?
- How did John Vane discover that aspirin works by inhibiting the enzyme cyclo-oxygenase?
- How did Paul Berg's lab combine restriction enzymes and ligase to construct the first recombinant DNA molecule?
- How did Porter's use of the enzyme papain reveal the separate functional parts of an antibody?
- How does ATP synthase use physical rotation, rather than ordinary chemistry, to build ATP?
- How does directed evolution in the lab mimic natural selection to design new enzymes?
- How does embedding a quantum-mechanical core inside a classical shell let chemists model enzymes accurately?
- How does phosphorylation switch glycogen phosphorylase between active and inactive forms?
- How does the enzyme in Beano prevent gas-producing fermentation before it starts?
- In what way did Taube's discoveries help explain how metalloenzymes function?
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- What are coenzymes, and what role do they play in glycolysis?
- What cellular processes besides glycogen breakdown are governed by reversible phosphorylation?
- What did Anfinsen's 1962 work show about the relationship between a protein's amino acid sequence and its three-dimensional shape?
- What did Anfinsen's ribonuclease A experiments show about how a protein knows what shape to fold into?
- What did Cech observe in Tetrahymena thermophila that showed RNA could catalyze reactions without any protein present?
- What did Moore and Stein work out about the structure of ribonuclease that Anfinsen's experiments alone did not show?
- What did Paul Greengard discover about how slow-acting neurotransmitters signal cells?
- What did Sumner crystallize in 1926, and what did it prove about the chemical nature of enzymes?
- What did Theorell prove by separating the yellow ferment into a protein and a prosthetic group, then recombining them?
- What did Theorell's later work on alcohol dehydrogenases reveal about how the liver processes alcohol?
- What did Thomas Cech discover about certain RNA molecules that overturned the assumption that only proteins could catalyse reactions?
- What did the 2026 ribozyme actually demonstrate about copying RNA templates and itself?
- What diseases result when the phosphorylation toggle malfunctions?
- What does it mean for David Baker to design proteins that 'do not exist in nature', and what are these novel proteins used for?
- What enzyme did Severo Ochoa isolate that could synthesize RNA outside a living cell, and why did it matter for cracking the genetic code?
- What enzyme in saliva breaks down grime on artwork, and how does it work?
- What evidence from crystallography confirmed that ATP synthase's subunits actually rotate?
- What is Fischer's lock-and-key model of enzyme action, and why does it still matter to pharmaceutical design?
- What is a polymerase ribozyme, and how is it different from a protein enzyme?
- What is the chemiosmotic hypothesis, and how does a proton gradient across a membrane drive ATP synthesis?
- What is zymase, and why was it significant that it could ferment sugar without living cells present?
- What kinds of biological processes, like photosynthesis, became measurable once these fast-reaction techniques existed?
- What made the Kornberg father-son Nobel pairing unusual in the prize's history?
- What modern medical technologies, like PCR testing, trace their origin back to Kornberg's discovery of DNA polymerase?
- What other proteins did Northrop and Stanley crystallize to reinforce Sumner's original claim?
- What raw material does the body start from when it synthesises cholesterol, and how many enzymatic steps does the full pathway take?
- What research problem at the Carlsberg Laboratory led Sørensen to invent the pH scale?
- What role do restriction enzymes and DNA ligase play in splicing genes from two different plasmids?
- What role does coenzyme A play in linking fats, carbohydrates, and proteins into a single metabolic pathway?
- Why are enzymes so particular about which mirror-image form of a molecule they will bind?
- Why did researchers look to infant faeces as a source of bacteria for fermenting sausage?
- Why did the protein-plus-cofactor architecture Theorell found turn out to be a general principle across enzyme biology?
- Why do plants use magnesium to capture light while animals use iron to carry oxygen?
- Why does a protein's three-dimensional fold determine its biological function?
- Why does chlorophyll use magnesium at its centre instead of the iron that haemoglobin relies on?
- Why were Ochoa's and Kornberg's discoveries described as finding the machinery for both the 'permanent archive' and the 'working transcript' of genetic material?
- Why were two unrelated discoveries about cellular energy and ion transport awarded the same prize?
Sources
- Boyer-Cohen gene cloning in bacteria demonstrated
- First in vitro construction of recombinant DNA
- Ig Nobel Prize in Chemistry
- Ig Nobel Prize in Medicine
- Ig Nobel Prize in Nutrition
- Lasker Award (Basic Medical Research)
- Nobel Prize in Chemistry
- Nobel Prize in Chemistry
- Nobel Prize in Chemistry
- Nobel Prize in Chemistry
- Nobel Prize in Chemistry
- Nobel Prize in Chemistry
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- Nobel Prize in Chemistry
- Nobel Prize in Chemistry
- Nobel Prize in Chemistry
- Nobel Prize in Chemistry
- Nobel Prize in Chemistry
- Nobel Prize in Chemistry
- Nobel Prize in Chemistry
- Nobel Prize in Chemistry
- Nobel Prize in Chemistry
- Nobel Prize in Chemistry
- Nobel Prize in Chemistry
- Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
- Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
- Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
- Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
- Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
- Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
- Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
- Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
- S.P.L. Sørensen invents the pH scale
- Self-replicating polymerase ribozyme supports RNA World hypothesis
- Willstätter determines chlorophyll structure