Self-reporting Biological Nano-systems To Study And Control Bio-molecular Mechanisms On The Single Molecule Level (BIOSCOPE)

摘要

Bearing in mind the potential and importance of enzymatic processes it is somewhat surprising that we are not yet able to fully exploit the possibilities that such processes offer. The main reason is that we do not know the mechanism on the molecular scale in terms of the interaction between the enzyme and the substrate or rather the assembly of substrate molecules (see Figure 1.). This is indeed an interfacial process on the molecular scale. Here we recall that the enzymes work at very low concentrations. Thus under relevant conditions the effect of this isolated enzyme molecule in terms of global properties, like interfacial tension, rheology and curvature, on the relatively large substrate interface is very limited or non-existing at all [1, 2]. It is well established that the local effects on the nanoscopic scale are very significant and understanding of their role in governing enzymatic processes is crucial for the progress of nano-science. Unfortunately, these local effects are not possible to be described and determined at the moment, since the relevant and required tools are not available.