Enzymes make light work of hydrocarbon production

An algal enzyme that uses visible light to catalyze hydrocarbon formation may find use in biotechnology The acceleration of chemical reactions by visible light offers environmentally friendly routes to chemical synthesis that may be practical and scalable for use in industrial manufacture ( 1 ). Alt...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inScience (American Association for the Advancement of Science) Vol. 357; no. 6354; pp. 872 - 873
Main Author Scrutton, Nigel S.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States American Association for the Advancement of Science 01.09.2017
The American Association for the Advancement of Science
Subjects
Algae
Atmospheric chemistry
Catalysis
Chemical reactions
Chemical synthesis
Decarboxylation
Enzymes
Fatty acids
Hydrocarbons
Light
Microalgae
PERSPECTIVES
Photochemistry
Riboflavin
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Summary:An algal enzyme that uses visible light to catalyze hydrocarbon formation may find use in biotechnology The acceleration of chemical reactions by visible light offers environmentally friendly routes to chemical synthesis that may be practical and scalable for use in industrial manufacture ( 1 ). Although widespread in chemistry, photocatalysis is rare in biology, and the harnessing of photochemistry in biologically based manufacture is challenging. On page 903 of this issue, Sorigué et al. ( 2 ) describe an algal photoenzyme that uses blue light to convert fatty acids into hydrocarbons. The photoenzyme uses a riboflavin (vitamin B2) cofactor to drive fatty acid decarboxylation via radical-based catalysis and shows promise as a light-dependent biocatalyst for hydrocarbon production. This and other recent discoveries suggest a hitherto hidden scope for biotechnologically useful photochemistry by means of cofactor-dependent enzymes.
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ISSN:0036-8075
1095-9203
DOI:10.1126/science.aao4399