Department of Pharmacology, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Aurora, CO 80045, USA.
Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of California, San Francisco, CA 94158, USA.
J Mol Biol. 2021 Jun 11;433(12):166624. doi: 10.1016/j.jmb.2020.08.009. Epub 2020 Aug 15.
Biological enzymes significantly speed up chemical reactions in living organisms. The complex environment within cells has long been appreciated as a major regulator of enzymatic activities. Recent advances in the rapidly evolving field of biological condensates, which are spontaneously formed by macromolecules through phase separation, suggest new possibilities for how enzymatic reactions may be modulated within cells. Here, we review the latest studies of enzymatic reactions in biological condensates focusing on basic concepts in enzymology and discussing some context-dependent roles of phase separation in regulating biochemical reactions.
生物酶能显著加快生物体内的化学反应速度。细胞内复杂的环境一直被认为是调节酶活性的主要因素。近年来,生物凝聚物领域发展迅速,该领域中的生物大分子通过相分离自发形成凝聚物,这为研究细胞内酶反应的调控机制提供了新的可能。本文综述了生物凝聚物中酶反应的最新研究进展,重点讨论了酶学中的基本概念,并探讨了相分离在调节生化反应方面的一些依赖于背景的作用。