Enzymatic evolution driven by entropy production

Abstract

AbstractWe show that the structural evolution of enzymes is largely influenced by the entropy produced in the enzymatic process. We have computed this quantity for the case in which the process has unstable and metastable intermediate states. By assuming that the kinetics takes place along a potential barrier, we have found that the behavior of the total entropy produced is a non-monotonic function of the intermediate state energy. By diminishing the number of metastable intermediate states, the total entropy produced decreases and consequently the enzyme kinetics and the thermodynamic efficiency are enhanced. Minimizing locally the total entropy produced for an enzymatic process with metastable intermediate states, the kinetics and the thermodynamic efficiency are raised. In contrast, in the absence of metastable intermediate states, a maximum of the entropy produced results in an improvement of the kinetic performance although the thermodynamic efficiency diminishes. Our results show that the enzymatic evolution proceeds not only to enhance the kinetics but also to optimize the total entropy produced.