Glycosynthase

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is orphaned as few or no other articles link to it. Please help introduce links in articles on related topics. (September 2006)

The introduction to this article provides insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject. Please help improve the article with a good introductory style.

A glycosynthase is a mutant glycoside hydrolase that can be used to synthesize the glycosidic bond in high yield.

Glycosynthases are typically formed from retaining glycoside hydrolases (or glycosidases) by mutating the enzymic nucleophile from a carboxylate group to another, usually non-nucleophilic, residue such as glycine or alanine. Such mutant enzymes are severely diabled catalysts and cannot catalyze the cleavage of normal substrates. However, when presented with an activated sugar of the 'wrong' anomeric configuration, such as a glycosyl fluoride, glycosynthases can catalyze the condensation of sugar residues, synthesizing a glycoside. The newly formed glycoside, being a poor substrate for the mutant enzyme, can accumulate to essentially quantitative yields.

This article does not cite any references or sources. (May 2007) Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.