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EVOLUTION: Changing the Cofactor Diet of an Enzyme
Andrew D. Ellington and J. J. Bull
In all life, NAD+ is the cofactor for an enzyme used in leucine biosynthesis. In their Perspective, Ellington and Bull discuss how a five-amino acid change in the enzyme switches the cofactor to NADP+, with normal activity in vitro. Yet NADP+ use in vivo comes at an unavoidable cost, explaining the conservation of cofactor specificities in natural enzymes.
The authors are in the Departments of Chemistry and Integrative Biology, Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA. E-mail: bull{at}bull.biosci.utexas.edu, andy.ellington{at}mail.utexas.edu
