Structural studies on cellulases.

Abstract

Recent advances in chemical methodologies, together with the technique of X-ray structure analysis, are providing profound structural and mechanistic insights into cellulase action. At the structural level, detailed analyses of nearly all the enzyme families involved in cellulose breakdown are not known. Oligosaccharide complexes for all these enzymes have not yet been described, but utilization of the chemistry provided by non-hydrolysable oligosaccharides, sugars modified so as to provide long-lived glycosyl-enzyme intermediates, and the development of transition-state analogues, should soon extend and develop our knowledge of these systems. The way in which enzyme structure dictates reaction chemistry is beginning to be more clearly understood.