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Updated: Jul 16, 2026

Unraveling Entropic Rate Acceleration Induced by Solvent Dynamics in Membrane Enzymes
Published on: January 16, 2016
Computational study of phosphatase activity in soluble epoxide hydrolase: high efficiency through a water bridge
Marco De Vivo1, Bernd Ensing, Michael L Klein
1Center for Molecular Modeling, Department of Chemistry, University of Pennsylvania, 231 South 34th Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-6323, USA. mdevivo@cmm.upenn.edu
Abstract:
Recently, a new branch of fatty acid metabolism has been opened by the novel phosphatase activity found in the N-terminal domain of the, hence bifunctional, soluble epoxide hydrolase (sEH). Importantly, this finding has also provided a new site for drug targeting in sEH's activity regulation. Classical MD and hybrid Car-Parrinello QM/MM calculations have been performed to investigate the reaction mechanism of the phosphoenzyme intermediate formation in the first step of the catalysis. The results support a concerted multi-event reaction mechanism: (1) a dissociative in-line nucleophilic substitution for the phosphoryl transfer reaction; (2) a double proton transfer involved in the formation of a good leaving group in the transition state. The presence of a water bridge in the substrate/enzyme complex allowed an efficient proton shuttle, showing its key role in speeding up the catalysis. The calculated free energy of the favored catalytic pathway is approximately 19 kcal/mol, in excellent agreement with experimental data.
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