Promiscuous

Computer viruses are rather like AIDS. To avoid infection, do not promiscuously share data or disks, and keep the covers on your disks in the presence of computers whose background is unknown. 

The past thirty years have witnessed great advances in the selective synthesis of epoxides, and numerous regio-, chemo-, enantio-, and diastereoselective methods have been developed. Discovered in 1980, the Katsuki-Sharpless catalytic asymmetric epoxidation of allylic alcohols, in which a catalyst for the first time demonstrated both high selectivity and substrate promiscuity, was the first practical entry into the world of chiral 2,3-epoxy alcohols [10, 11]. Asymmetric catalysis of the epoxidation of unfunctionalized olefins through the use of Jacobsen s chiral [(sale-i i) Mi iln] [12] or Shi s chiral ketones [13] as oxidants is also well established. Catalytic asymmetric epoxidations have been comprehensively reviewed [14, 15]. 

As it is the case in polypeptide folding, nonspecific or promiscuous RNA-binding proteins can prevent RNA mis-folding and resolve mis-foldedRNAs, thereby ensuring that RNA is accessible for its biological function [ 1 ]. Certain DEAD-box proteins as well as some proteins that are involved in the assembly of ribonuleoparticles were shown to act as RNA chaperones. 

Potassium Competitive Acid Blockers The pregnane X receptor (PXR) is a promiscuous nuclear receptor, that has evolved to protect the body from toxic chemicals. It is activated by a wide variety of xenobiotics including several diugs like rifampicin, hyperforin ( the active ingredient of St. John s wort), clotrimazole and others. PXR heterodimerizes with the... 

In principle, numerous reports have detailed the possibility to modify an enzyme to carry out a different type of reaction than that of its attributed function, and the possibility to modify the cofactor of the enzyme has been well explored [8,10]. Recently, the possibility to directly observe reactions, normally not catalyzed by an enzyme when choosing a modified substrate, has been reported under the concept of catalytic promiscuity [9], a phenomenon that is believed to be involved in the appearance of new enzyme functions during the course of evolution [23]. A recent example of catalytic promiscuity of possible interest for novel biotransformations concerns the discovery that mutation of the nucleophilic serine residue in the active site of Candida antarctica lipase B produces a mutant (SerlOSAla) capable of efficiently catalyzing the Michael addition of acetyl acetone to methyl vinyl ketone [24]. The oxyanion hole is believed to be complex and activate the carbonyl group of the electrophile, while the histidine nucleophile takes care of generating the acetyl acetonate anion by deprotonation of the carbon (Figure 3.5). 

Enzyme promiscuity is clearly advantageous to chemists since it broadens the applicability of enzymes in chemical synthesis. New catalytic activities in existing enzymes can be enhanced by protein engineering - appropriate mutagenesis of the enzymes [106]. Some of the most illustrative examples of this unusual activity of common enzymes are presented below. 

Lipases are the enzymes for which a number of examples of a promiscuous activity have been reported. Thus, in addition to their original activity comprising hydrolysis of lipids and, generally, catalysis of the hydrolysis or formation of carboxylic esters [107], lipases have been found to catalyze not only the carbon-nitrogen bond hydrolysis/formation (in this case, acting as proteases) but also the carbon-carbon bond-forming reactions. The first example of a lipase-catalyzed Michael addition to 2-(trifluoromethyl)propenoic acid was described as early as in 1986 [108]. Michael addition of secondary amines to acrylonitrile is up to 100-fold faster in the presence of various preparations of the hpase from Candida antariica (CAL-B) than in the absence of a biocatalyst (Scheme 5.20) [109]. 

This model clearly shows that the catalytic machinery involves a dyad of histidine and aspartate together with the oxyanion hole. Hence, it does not involve serine, which is the key amino acid in the hydrolytic activity of lipases, and, together with aspartate and histidine, constitutes the active site catalytic triad. This has been confirmed by constructing a mutant in which serine was replaced with alanine (Serl05Ala), and finding that it catalyzes the Michael additions even more efficiently than the wild-type enzyme (an example of induced catalytic promiscuity ) [105]. 

Other interesting examples of proteases that exhibit promiscuous behavior are proline dipeptidase from Alteromonas sp. JD6.5, whose original activity is to cleave a dipeptide bond with a prolyl residue at the carboxy terminus [121, 122] and aminopeptidase P (AMPP) from E. coli, which is a prohne-specific peptidase that catalyzes the hydrolysis of N-terminal peptide bonds containing a proline residue [123, 124]. Both enzymes exhibit phosphotriesterase activity. This means that they are capable of catalyzing the reaction that does not exist in nature. It is of particular importance, since they can hydrolyze unnatural substrates - triesters of phosphoric acid and diesters of phosphonic acids - such as organophosphorus pesticides or organophosphoms warfare agents (Scheme 5.25) [125]. 

Finally, it should be mentioned that recently a new type of enzyme catalytic promiscuity reaction has been reported, which does not involve any of the catalytic... 

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