Enzymes revisited
Not many people know this but without enzymes we’re toast. Enzymes are found in all living
organisms and without them nothing can survive. An experiment showed that just an absence in one
enzymecauses the synthesis of DNA to take 78 million years. Another finding also showed that
without enzymes a substrate could take about 2.3 billion years to be 50% consumed1. Since the
beginning of life, enzymes have been working to produce nearly everything we see today, without
the enzymes in yeast we would not be able to ferment wine and bread, without enzymes we
wouldn’t be able to digest food, repair DNA, fight cancer…the list is endless!!!
So where am I going with this? In the history of enzymes, nothing can be more important in
understanding the roles of enzymes and how they play a part in how our body fights disease,
maintains its life support and grow. The implications of understanding enzyme activity goes back
into the basic understanding that if a vital enzyme could be crippled, the body would cease to
function. What is new is that with the explosion of technology, diseases can be studied more
accurately at the enzymatic and genetic level although I will be focusing more on the enzymatic
level. Cancer was chosen to discuss how enzymes are increasingly important in treating cancersince
51 people are diagnosed with cancer in New Zealand and there are 22 cancer deaths2.
This experiment focuses on two key things and that is the topoisomerase enzyme 1 and also the use
of thiazacridine derivatives. Topoisomerase serves as a means to uncoil super coiled DNA, in a
situation where DNA supercoils, it cannot carry out its biological function and by breaking the
strands DNA transiently and reforming it, DNA comes out relaxed. What this experiment has done
was to use an anticancer drugthiazacridine, add it to cancerous cells to investigate the activity and
effect on the cells. What resulted was that there were increased incidences in cell death. In other
words, without the action of topoisomerase, the DNA during replication of cancer cells doesn’t
happen in turn, killing the cell3.
You can see how in this experiment that the understanding of enzymes in DNA replication and would
help in not just in understanding their roles in health comes in handy to studying diseases and
prevention using drugs.
On the other hand, it has also been documented that our bodies have devised a means to deal with
cancer in a more natural way. It started from an experiment combining three seemingly unrelated
events and connecting them into a simple logical understanding to how enzymes in the body
work.Resveratrol, a cancer preventive agent found in red wine, Piceatannol, an antileukaemic and
tyrosine kinase inhibitor and last but not least the enzyme called CYP1B1. In tumour cells, there is an
increase in the production of enzymes called CYP1B1. The experiment showed that the enzyme
CYP1B1 was responsible for converting resveratrol into Piceatannol (an anti- cancer agent). This
experiment, if supported by other experiments has huge implications. Not only does it show that
natural compounds have a chance of stopping cancer, an idea that has never been investigated to its
fullest extent nor appreciated but it also shows the human ability to adapt and utilise enzymes to
counteract diseases.Although it is in inarguable that synthetic medicines have improved the quality
of life, there is a possibility that there are many things that nature and our ancestors have known
about dealing with cures and although the idea may seem farfetched, the wonder anti-cancer drug
taxol had its humble beginnings in the yew tree in the pacific. I also strongly believe that nature still
holds much in store for us and by understanding and researching enzymes we can find answers to
problems in nature to problems that appear insurmountable using synthetic problems.
I offer no solutions to any of the above cases discussed above, what is important is that an
understanding can be gleamed from that and an introduction of the possibilities that could be
worked out by understanding enzymes better. What is being brought across is that enzymes are
becoming increasingly important in understanding diseases and at the very least, some
understanding of that can be shared among the public.
I believe that New Zealand can stand to benefit from opening and pursuing new areas of
researchfrom bothan economic standpoint and a personal standpoint.Although the emphasis of
enzymes are on health I also believe that in no small part that enzymatic research can also be
extended to dealing with problems in ecology and genetics as well.
3 key points
-Enzymes are vital in today’s understanding of health and it has immediate benefits in NewZealand
-The redefinition of an enzyme
-An alternate and possible field of studying diseases differently while using enzymes as the bed rock.
References
1. http://www.med.unc.edu/biochem/news/without-enzyme-biological-reaction-essential-tolife-takes-2-3-billion-years-unc-study
2. http://www.cancernz.org.nz/divisions/auckland/about/cancer-statistics
3. Francisco W.A. Barros, Daniel P. Bezerra , Paulo M.P. Ferreira , Bruno C. Cavalcanti,
Teresinha G. Silva, Marina G.R. Pitta, Maria do C.A. de Lima, Suely L. Galdino, Ivan da R. Pitta,
Letícia V. Costa-Lotufo, Manoel O. Moraes, Rommel R. Burbano, Temenouga N. Guecheva,
João A.P. Henriques, Cláudia Pessoa, (2013), Inhibition of DNA topoisomerase I activity and
induction of apoptosis by thiazacridine derivatives, Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology
268,pp 37–46
4. ShubhashisChakrabarty, Michael S. Croft, Melissa G. Marko, Guillermo Moyna, (2013),
Synthesis and evaluation as potential anticancer agents of novel tetracyclic indenoquinoline
derivatives, Bioorganic& Medicinal Chemistry 21,pp 1143–1149