Experimental Approaches to Analysis of Reactions of Cytochrome P450 Enzymes

At this point in time, the analytical chemistry methods are superb for determining structures of products of cytochrome P450 (CYP) reactions. In particular, NMR and mass spectrometry are both sensitive and have high resolving power. The elucidation of structures of products is needed to guide further predictions about what a CYP will do. In addition, the 3‐dimensional structures (X‐ray) of at least 20 human CYPs are now available. All of this information is being used to help guide predictions of how CYPs will oxidize new drug candidates. Two major challenges are the malleability of CYP active sites and variation in rate‐limiting steps with different reactions.