Molecular Info® Copy Right © 2001
Institute of Molecular Development LLC
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Antibody Catalysis of the Oxidation of Water
Paul Wentworth Jr., Lyn H. Jones, Anita D. Wentworth, Xueyong Zhu, Nicholas A. Larsen, Ian A. Wilson, Xin Xu, William A. Goddard III, Kim D. Janda, Albert Eschenmoser, and Richard A. Lerner
The Science, September 2001, 293: 1806-1811.
Antibodies can produce up to 500 mole equivalents of H2O2 from singlet molecular oxygen (1O2*), without a reduction in rate. On the basis of isotope incorporation experiments and kinetic data, antibodies are proposed to use H2O as an electron source, facilitating its addition to 1O2* to form H2O3 as the first intermediate in a reaction cascade that eventually leads to H2O2. X-ray crystallographic studies with xenon point to putative conserved oxygen binding sites within the antibody fold where this chemistry could be initiated. These results suggest that antibodies create highly reactive chemicals by burning water that cell can use to cleans themselves and poison invaders.
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