Enhanced Diffusion and Chemotaxis of Enzymes.
Many enzymes appear to diffuse faster in the presence of substrate and to drift either up or down a concentration gradient of their substrate. Observations of these phenomena, termed enhanced enzyme diffusion (EED) and enzyme chemotaxis, respectively, lead to a novel view of enzymes as active matter. Enzyme chemotaxis and EED may be important in biology and could have practical applications in biotechnology and nanotechnology. They are also of considerable biophysical interest; indeed, their physical mechanisms are still quite uncertain. This review provides an analytic summary of experimental studies of these phenomena and of the mechanisms that have been proposed to explain them and offers a perspective on future directions for the field. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Biophysics, Volume 49 is May 6, 2020. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.