how do microorganisms produce enzymes?
In: Biology
Enzymes are composed of proteins, with a few exceptions which I’ll touch on below.
All known living organisms produce proteins in the same way, by using structures called ribosomes and transfer RNA’s
These work to read the sequence of bases on RNA and convert that sequence into a sequence of amino acids that form a protein.
Depending on the particular order of amino acids, the protein folds onto a convoluted 3D structure that allows them to act in a way like molecular machines (although this isn’t a perfect analogy.)
Ribosomes themselves are composed of a core of RNA and have about 2 dozen accessory proteins that provide structural support and/or modify it’s function in some way. Transfer RNA’s are purely RNA.
There are a few other known examples of “ribozymes” aside from the ribosome mechanism. Often, they exist as additional sections on RNA’s that don’t directly code for proteins. Instead they work to deactivate that RNA strand under certain conditions, and prevent the corresponding enzyme being produced by the ribosome.
This suggests that in the very distant past, most enzymes were composed of RNA instead of proteins.
The same way that macroorganisms do. Enzyme production happens on the cellular level. Enzymes are just proteins that catalyze a certain reaction, in essence, they’re the proteins that *do* things. So DNA>mRNA>protein
DNA is biochemical code. It contains four basic units. They are ordered differently to make a code.
Specialized small machines (they’re big in the cell, but nanoscopic) called polymerases are attracted to regions in the DNA, and once bound to this specific code, they begin reading and making another string of code using a slightly different code, RNA.
This RNA is now a copy of a section of DNA in a different language. It dissociated from the polymerase and floats around. It gets edited (differently in micro organisms) and when it’s done and mature, another machine finds it. The ribosome.
This ribosome binds the RNA and starts reading it. It makes another code, it translates it to a new language. This language is protein. It’s made of amino acids, as opposed to nucleic acids in DNA/RNA. Each 3 bases in the RNA code translate to one unit of protein, amino acids.
Now you have a long string of amino acids. These amino acids interact with one another chemically. So the string to starts to fold on itself in different ways depending on its sequence. Other proteins can also help it fold.
Now protein has a specific shape. It can get modified too. Due to its shape, some things can fit in it, and when they do, they undergo a specific reaction. This is catalysis. A process done by enzymes, a type of protein.
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