Enzyme Reactions
Enzymes are proteins that catalyze (i.e., increase the rates of) chemical reactions. In enzymatic reactions, the molecules at the beginning of the process are called substrates, and they are converted into different molecules, called the products. Almost all processes in a biological cell need enzymes to occur at significant rates. Since enzymes are selective for their substrates and speed up only a few reactions from among many possibilities, the set of enzymes made in a cell determines which metabolic pathways occur in that cell.
Review Articles
Green polymer chemistry: Precision synthesis of novel multifunctional poly(ethylene glycol)s using enzymatic catalysis Review Article
(524-534) European Polymer Journal 47 #4 (2011)
Puskas, Seo and Se of the the University of Akron, Ohio, reviews enzyme catalysis, and reports the precision synthesis of multifunctional poly(ethylene glycol)s using this green chemistry approach. Specifically, vinyl acrylate was transesterified with tetraethylene glycol (TEG) and a PEG with DPn = 23, and then (HO)2–TEG–(OH)2 and (HO)2–PEG–(OH)2 were synthesized by the Michael addition of diethanolamine to the acrylate double bonds. These structures will serve as the core of novel dendrimers designed for drug delivery applications. (RDC 4/8/2011)