Metal-enzyme complexes difference between metalloenzymes

The additional comment that the high aflSnity of metalloenzymes for their metals as "compared with the stability of chelates which use the same ligands, argues against a thermodynamically strained coordination is similarly not relevant and based upon a misinterpretation of the entatic site hypothesis. Entasis implies that the difference in energy between the ground state and transition state for the enzymatic reaction is reduced, not that the metal-enzyme complex is thermodynamically less stable, as was inferred. Indeed, there is no reason to suppose that the distorted environment of a metal ion in an enzyme as opposed to a simple metal complex leads necessarily to an increase in free energy. The studies of alkaline phosphatase just presented certainly seem consistent with the entatic state hypothesis. 

Metal cofactors in enzymes may be bound reversibly or firmly. Reversible binding occurs in metal-activated enzymes (e.g., many phosphotransferases) firm (or tight) binding occurs in metalloenzymes (e.g., carboxypeptidase A). Metals participate in enzyme catalysis in a number of different ways. An inherent catalytic property of a metal ion may be augmented by the enzyme protein, or metal ions may form complexes with the substrate and the active center of the enzyme and promote catalysis, or metal ions may function in electron transport reactions between substrates and enzymes. 

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