The Chemical Reactivity of Enzymes

An enzyme contains one or more active sites, at which the reaction occurs. The substrate, the substance that is being altered, becomes attached to this site in some way. A co-enzyme, if one is involved, is also attached to, or held close to the active site. 

Cornforth has done much of the work in understanding the stereochemistry of many biosynthetic reactions and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry (with V. Prelog) for this in 1975. For the biochemistry of enzymes the reader is directed to T. Palmer, Understanding enzymes 3rd edtion, 1991, Ellis Horwood, Chichester, and for a detailed treatment of enzyme and co-enzyme reaction mechanisms, T. Bugg, An introduction to enzyme and co-enzyme chemistry 1997, Blackwell Scientific, Oxford. 

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