Urease

• Published in: Nanoscale p. 47
• Main Authors: Deffeyes, Kenneth S, Deffeyes, Stephen E
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: United States The MIT Press 30.09.2011; MIT Press
• Subjects: Acids; Agricultural chemistry; Agricultural sciences; Agriculture; Amino acids; Ammonia; Atomic physics; Atoms; Biogeography; Biological sciences; Biopolymers; Carbon compounds; Carbon dioxide; Chemical bases; Chemical compounds; Chemical elements; Chemicals; Chemistry; Enzymes; Fertilizers; Gases; Hydrogen; Matter; Microphysics; Molecular biology; Molecular physics; Molecules; Nanotechnology; Nickel; Nitrogen; Physical Sciences; Physics; Polymers; Proteins; Siderophile elements; States of matter; Transition metals
• ISBN: 9780262516716; 0262516713
• DOI: 10.7551/mitpress/8166.003.0019

Before 1828, an absolute barrier was thought to exist between the chemicals produced by living organisms and “inorganic” chemicals produced in the lab. Vitalism was thought to be unique to living systems. That barrier was broken by Friedrich Wohler, who produced urea in his lab from inorganic chemicals. Urea was named, obviously, from urine. Most of the protein nitrogen in the adult diet winds up as urea in the urine. A few billion years before 1828, bacteria developed a method for running the urea synthesis backward: converting urea into carbon dioxide and nitrogen-containing ammonia. The bacterial reaction was speeded up