Benchmark Reaction Rates, the Stability of Biological Molecules in Water, and the Evolution of Catalytic Power in Enzymes

The rates of enzyme reactions fall within a relatively narrow range. To estimate the rate enhancements produced by enzymes, and their expected affinities for transition state analog inhibitors, it is necessary to measure the rates of the corresponding reactions in water in the absence of a catalyst. This review describes the spontaneous cleavages of C-C, C-H, C-N, C-O, P-O, and S-O bonds in biological molecules, as well as the uncatalyzed reactions that correspond to phosphoryl transfer reactions catalyzed by kinases and to peptidyl transfer in the ribosome. The rates of these reactions, some with half-lives in excess of one million years, span an overall range of 10¹⁹-fold. Moreover, the slowest reactions tend to be most sensitive to temperature, with rates that increase as much as 10⁷-fold when the temperature is raised from 25° to 100°C. That tendency collapses, by many orders of magnitude, the time that would have been required for chemical evolution on a warm earth. If the catalytic effect of primitive enzymes, like that of modern enzymes and many nonenzymatic catalysts, were mainly to reduce a reaction's enthalpy of activation, then the resulting rate enhancement would have increased automatically as the surroundings cooled. By reducing the time required for early chemical evolution in a warm environment, these findings counter the view that not enough time has passed for terrestrial life to have evolved to its present level of complexity.