Topic
The practice of altering enzymes to change their activity, selectivity, stability or substrate range, using directed evolution, rational design or computational prediction.
David Baker's University of Washington group tested 135 AI-designed zinc proteases, and 36% cut their target peptides. Cysteine designs fared worse, with 13 of 69 cutting theirs, and both rates come from a bacterial screen.
Reality
ITQB NOVA researchers engineered PsGalOx, which they call the first bacterial galactose oxidase, into a variant 40 to 1,800 times more efficient. The team says much of the gain in directed evolution came from cells making more protein; drug substrates are still ahead.
Reality
A Berlin-led team rebuilt ancient plant enzymes and traced their choice between two mirror-image molecules to 19 mutations, just one in the active site. The Nature Communications study points enzyme engineers toward protein dynamics as the lever for building selectivity.
Reality
National Taiwan University researchers built a fluorescence assay that screens thousands of BsPPS enzyme variants on a standard microplate reader. It replaces slow HPLC during screening and flagged one heat-tolerant variant, G145D.
Reality
Its agents interview the user for what the request leaves out, then build and run the modelling. The paper shows this on two enzymes, which demonstrates the pipeline rather than measuring how often it is right.
Reality