How the cholinesterases got their modern names

The classification of the cholinesterases into ‘true’ and ‘pseudo’ became obsolete when, some 60 years ago, the author and his co-workers showed that both enzymes had a broad specificity and differed mainly in their acyl group specificity. The importance of complementarity between enzyme and substra...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Chemico-biological interactions 2010-09, Vol.187 (1), p.23-26
Main Author: Whittaker, Victor P.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acetylcholinesterase - history
Animals
Butyrylcholinesterase - history
Carbon analogues of choline esters
Cholinesterases - chemistry
Cholinesterases - history
Cholinesterases - metabolism
Dispersion forces
Enzyme–substrate complementarity
History, 20th Century
Humans
Ion-induced dipole interactions
Terminology as Topic
True-, pseudo-, acetyl-, butyryl-cholinesterases
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The classification of the cholinesterases into ‘true’ and ‘pseudo’ became obsolete when, some 60 years ago, the author and his co-workers showed that both enzymes had a broad specificity and differed mainly in their acyl group specificity. The importance of complementarity between enzyme and substrate was shown by the high rate of hydrolysis of carbon analogues of choline esters and this enabled pioneer studies of the intermolecular forces between the enzymes’ active centres and their substrates to be carried out.
ISSN:0009-2797
1872-7786
DOI:10.1016/j.cbi.2010.02.041