To disarm toxic substances, many organisms including humans possess enzymes called flavin-containing monooxygenases (FMOs). Despite their importance, the structure of the enzymes has not been resolved, as the protein is too unstable to study in detail. University of Groningen enzyme engineer Marco Fraaije and colleagues from Italy and Argentina reconstructed the ancestral genetic sequences for three FMO genes and subsequently studied the enzymes. The ancestral enzymes proved to be stable enough to study and revealed how FMOs metabolize toxic substances. The results were published on 23 December in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology.
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Source: Phys.org