Journal
TRENDS IN BIOCHEMICAL SCIENCES
Volume 40, Issue 2, Pages 72-78Publisher
ELSEVIER SCIENCE LONDON
DOI: 10.1016/j.tibs.2014.12.004
Keywords
promiscuity; substrate ambiguity; enzyme; molecular evolution
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Funding
- National Institutes of Health (NIH) [RO1 GM083285]
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Evolutionary biochemists define enzyme promiscuity as the ability to catalyze secondary reactions that are physiologically irrelevant, either because they are too inefficient to affect fitness or because the enzyme never encounters the substrate. Promiscuous activities are common because evolution of a perfectly specific active site is both difficult and unnecessary; natural selection ceases when the performance of a protein is 'good enough' that it no longer affects fitness. Although promiscuous functions are accidental and physiologically irrelevant, they are of great importance because they provide opportunities for the evolution of new functions in nature and in the laboratory, as well as targets for therapeutic drugs and tools for a wide range of technological applications.
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