The Development of the Understanding of Enzyme Catalysis in the 20th Century: Contributions from Carbohydrate Enzymes

Abstract

One hundred years ago, at the beginning of the 20th Century, enzymes were just beginning to be recognized as powerful catalysts that had a high degree of specificity. Michaelis-Menten kinetics indicated that catalysis occurred after an enzyme-substrate complex was formed. Studies on several carbohydrate enzymes, invertase, phosphorylase, dextransucrase, α-amylases, β-amylases, lysozyme, sucrose phosphorylase, cellulose synthase, and starch synthase have contributed a large body of information about subsite binding specificity, the formation of enzyme-substrate complexes, the formation of a covalent enzyme-product-intermediate from an SN2 reaction that undergoes a second reaction to give the final product(s). Mechanisms for several carbohydrate enzymes are presented.