X-Ray Diffraction Studies on Enzymes in the Glycolytic Pathway

In most cells the primary step in the production of energy and many essential metabolites is a series of biochemical reactions in which either glucose or glycogen is oxidized to pyruvate. The general biological importance of these reactions attracted the early biochemists towards the problem of defining each step in the reaction pathway and it can now be argued that enzymology, if not modern biochemistry, had its origins in these studies which led eventually to the isolation and characterization of each of the necessary enzymes, their substrates and cofactors. It is not surprising, therefore, to find that the importance of this pathway and the wealth of biochemical information now available concerning these enzymes has also attracted the attention of the protein crystallographers.