Bronsted Analysis of Catalytic Promicuity in Enzyme Models and Model Enzymes

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Most biological processes involve the action of enzymes, which are central for explaining the workings of living cells and organisms. However, there is no comprehensive quantitative understanding of enzyme action and our current understanding certainly fails the most severe test, that of producing catalysts with rates that rival natural enzymes. Catalysis is defined as transition state stabilisation. We will apply a tool from physical-organic chemistry, linear-free energy relationships, to characterise these transitions states in catalytic systems that have not just one, but several activities (a phenomenon called 'catalytic promiscuity'). We hope to gain detailed insight into the bond-making and -breaking processes in these remarkable catalysts, to trace the evolution of a catalytic machinery on the basic level of mechanistic chemistry and learn about the nature of their transition states.