Chemistry
Mechanistic Insights into Enzyme-Catalyzed Proton Transfer Reactions
Quick fact
Enzyme-catalyzed proton transfers can occur up to 10^10 times faster than the uncatalyzed reaction, largely because the active site provides a pre-organized environment that eliminates the need for costly desolvation and orientation steps.
Why this is interesting
Your body can cleave a peptide bond in milliseconds, but in a test tube the same reaction would take thousands of years. How do enzymes achieve such astonishing speed? The answer lies in how they move protons.