Homemade cofactors: Self-processing in galactose oxidase

摘要

Numerous enzymes use a variety of cofactors for achieving their impress- sive catalytic prowess. Generally, these cofactors are generated via complex mul- tistep biosynthetic pathways involving many proteins. A less commonly encoun- tered means of cofactor biosynthesis, but one that is found with increasing fre- quency, involves the posttranslational modification of endogenous amino acids in the enzyme. These modifications can occur via autocatalytic processes or may be catalyzed by other auxiliary proteins.