Designed divergent evolution of enzyme function

Natural molecular evolution has created enzymes designed to catalyse a single reaction, by modifying enzymes that were once much less choosy. Yoshikuni et al. have developed a method of designing synthetic enzymes using a mathematical model that mimics the mechanisms of molecular evolution. They use the system to produce a series of novel sesquiterpene cyclases that use different reaction pathways to produce different end-products. This demonstrates the feasibility of exploiting the evolvability of an enzyme scaffold to produce more pure versions of existing molecules or to create new molecules that do not exist in nature.