Single-atom substitution redirects KatG reactivity from cofactor biogenesis to stereoselective sulfoxidation
Ran Duan, Jiasong Li, Wendell P Griffith, Yang Xu, Nathan D Burrows, Anthony P Green, Aimin Liu · 2026
Read Single-atom substitution redirects KatG reactivity from cofactor biogenesis to stereoselective sulfoxidation by Ran Duan, Jiasong Li, Wendell P Griffith, Yang Xu, Nathan D Burrows, Anthony P Green, Aimin Liu (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/PMC13272816.txt.
Description
Ran Duan leads a 2026 study that swaps a single atom in an enzyme called KatG to see how its chemistry changes. KatG uses a linked three-part cofactor to break down hydrogen peroxide. The team replaced one building block, tryptophan, with a sulfur version, using expanded genetic code methods.
Instead of forming the usual crosslink, the changed enzyme added oxygen at the sulfur, making a single handed form of a sulfoxide product. A detailed structure at 2.22 angstrom resolution showed the new oxygen pointing toward the iron center, with no crosslink. This change suppressed the enzyme's main activity and revealed a hidden oxygen-adding ability in KatG.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Ran Duan, Jiasong Li, Wendell P Griffith, Yang Xu, Nathan D Burrows, Anthony P Green, Aimin Liu |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 54708 |
| LICENSE | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |