Abstracts

Designer enzymes are enzymes whose function has been artificially modified to catalyze a desired reaction. Although enzyme catalysts are considered difficult to design due to their large molecular weight compared to the common catalysts used in chemical synthesis (metal catalysts and organocatalysts), their main attraction is that they can easily control reactions that are difficult (and infeasible) even with the capabilities of modern synthetic organic chemistry. I believe that this is a field that will continue to develop in the future, as the bottleneck of the "black box of the structure of a target enzyme" is being overcome by the development of the innovative protein structure prediction program Alphafold3.

Our research focuses on specific reactions found in the biosynthesis of natural products, such as "strict control of multi-step reactions from simple materials to complex products" and "switching of catalytic reactions by intermolecular interactions". The research is conducted with the aim of elucidating the principles and developing methodologies for artificial control of these functions.

Keywords

Control of the enzyme function, multi-step reactions 

Skills learned

Purification of enzymes, Microanalysis, Chemical synthesis

Publications

Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2023, 62, e202308881.

Org. Lett. 2021, 23, 2616-2620. 

J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2018, 140, 12392-12395.