Substrate channelling in an engineered bifunctional aldolase/kinase enzyme confers catalytic advantage for C-C bond formation

A new bifunctional enzyme that displays both aldolase and kinase activities has been designed and successfully used in the synthesis of aldol adducts, employing DHA as initial donor, with an increase in the reaction rate of 20-fold over the parent enzymes, which can be interpreted in terms of substrate channelling.