Anchors Away

摘要

On page 919 of this issue, Koehn et al. propose that, in certain microorganisms, a previously unknown biochemical mechanism underpins the function of an enzyme that is essential to the microorganisms' survival. In mammals, the activity of this enzyme - thymidylate synthase - depends on an 'anchor' in its active site that binds covalently to the enzyme's substrate. But the authors find that, in some microbes (including many that threaten human life), thymidylate synthase is active in the absence of such an anchor. The mechanism that explains this behaviour is a potential target for antibiotic drugs that would be toxic to microbes, but not to humans.