Network Context and Selection in the Evolution to Enzyme Specificity

Abstract

Good Enough Can Be Good Enough To begin to understand why some enzymes are promiscuous and have many substrates, whereas others are highly specific, and why some have high activity, whereas others appear not to be optimized, Nam et al. (p. 1101 ) analyzed metabolic networks in bacteria. Specialist enzymes are essential for life, catalyze a high flux of enzymatic activity, and are more highly regulated. However, not all enzymes appear to be on a track of gradual improvement of specificity and efficiency. Generalist enzymes seem to well serve their own purposes, and their optimization may not justify the evolutionary cost.