fullscreen

eFinder

eFinder

Home › Article

Engineered enzymes forge carbon-carbon and carbon-nitrogen bonds with high selectivity

Phys · · 573 words · By Enna Bartlett
headphones Listen to the eFinder podcast briefing
Generate a natural audio summary of this story
Daily briefing

What to know about Engineered enzymes forge carbon-carbon and carbon-nitrogen bonds with high selectivity

Researchers from the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology have developed a new family of engineered enzymes capable of creating carbon-carbon and carbon-nitrogen bonds with high selectivity. The study, published in Nature Catalysis, demonstrates the use of non-natural catalytic amino acids and directed evolution to produce complex molecular structures for potential use in pharmaceuticals and materials science.

Propaganda risk 0%
Claims checked 11
Techniques found 0
Topics 0

Coverage spectrum

Coverage gap: Low Left coverage
Left0%
Center80%
Right20%

5 sources compared across this story cluster. This is an eFinder estimate from indexed source coverage, not an editorial rating.

What happened

Engineered enzymes forge carbon-carbon and carbon-nitrogen bonds with high selectivity Swati Mestri Scientific Editor Robert Egan Senior Editor Researchers from the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology, including Dr.

Why it matters

Zachary Birch-Price and professor Anthony Green, have developed a new family of engineered enzymes that can create several different types of chemical bonds used to build complex molecules.

Common ground

This work demonstrates how artificial enzymes can be adapted to carry out a broad range of carbon-carbon (C-C) and carbon-nitrogen (C-N) bond-forming reactions with high selectivity, offering new possibilities for biocatalysis.

Perspective signals

No major persuasion pattern has been attached yet, so the source, headline, and evidence should carry most of the weight for readers.

Researchers from the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology have developed a new family of engineered enzymes capable of creating carbon-carbon and carbon-nitrogen bonds with high selectivity. The study, published in Nature Catalysis, demonstrates the use of non-natural catalytic amino acids and directed evolution to produce complex molecular structures for potential use in pharmaceuticals and materials science.

open_in_new Read the original article: https://phys.org/news/2026-08-enzymes-forge-carbon-nitrogen-bonds.html

analyticsAnalysis

0%
Propaganda Score
confidence: 100%
Low risk. This article shows minimal use of propaganda techniques.

fact_checkClaims Checked

eFinder analyzed this article and checked 11 claims against available evidence, cross-references, web search, and Wikipedia. Here is what the fact-checking layer found.

check_circle Corroborated 4
info Single Source 3
help Insufficient Evidence 2
schedule Pending 1
verified Verified By Reference 1
help
Claim 1: “The researchers demonstrated that the engineered enzymes could work with a broad range of reaction partners, including substituted furans, indoles, pyrroles, cyanoesters, diketones, ketoesters, anilines and isatins.”
INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE
No evidence was found in the provided search results to support the list of reaction partners.
check_circle
Claim 2: “A second enzyme variant, ASA1.5, enabled the formation of molecules containing all-carbon quaternary stereocenters”
CORROBORATED
Two independent web search results from the University of Manchester confirm that variant ASA1.5 enabled the formation of molecules containing all-carbon quaternary stereocenters.
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — A second enzyme variant, ASA1.5, enabled the formation of molecules containing all-carbon quaternary stereocenters, structures that can be challenging to synthesize selectively.
https://phys.org/news/2026-08-enzymes-forge-carbon-nitrogen-…
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — A second enzyme variant, ASA1.5, enabled the formation of molecules containing all-carbon quaternary stereocentres, structures that can be challenging to synthesise selectively.View all headlines - La…
https://www.manchester.ac.uk/about/news/complex-molecules-fr…
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — The construction of diversely substituted all-carbon quaternary centers has been a longstanding challenge in organic synthesis. Methods that add three alkyl substituents to a simple C(sp3) atom rely h…
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/298091961_Quaternar…
help
Claim 3: “The team found evidence that a para-nitrophenol group released during the reaction remains in the enzyme active site and helps orient incoming reactants”
INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE
No evidence was found in the provided search results regarding the para-nitrophenol group in the active site.
check_circle
Claim 4: “This facilitated the development of a new enzyme class, termed allylic transferases, which form highly reactive imidazolium intermediates”
CORROBORATED
The claim is confirmed by web search results describing the development of 'allylic transferases' that form 'imidazolium intermediates', and is further supported by a PDB (Protein Data Bank) entry for an allylic transferase enzyme.
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — Classification: TRANSFERASE. Organism(s): Escherichia coli.Generation, Structural Characterization and Synthetic Utility of Electrophilic Imidazolium Intermediates Confined in Enzyme Active Sites.
https://www.rcsb.org/structure/9R2D
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — This facilitated the development of a new enzyme class, termed allylic transferases, which form highly reactive imidazolium intermediates that could then be intercepted by a variety of carbon- and nit…
https://phys.org/news/2026-08-enzymes-forge-carbon-nitrogen-…
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — Allylic transfer reactions are particularly prone to this issue. In small-molecule-catalysed systems, the intermediate can react again with another catalyst molecule, shuffling between states that lea…
https://communities.springernature.com/posts/the-inhibition-…
schedule
Claim 5: “Zachary Birch-Price et al, Protein-confined imidazolium intermediates enable diverse biocatalytic C–C and C–N bond formations, Nature Catalysis (2026). DOI: 10.1038/s41929-026-01587-8”
PENDING
This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.
info
Claim 6: “Published in Nature Catalysis, the research addresses a long-standing challenge in chemistry: developing biological catalysts that can selectively construct complex molecular architectures.”
SINGLE SOURCE
The provided evidence for this claim consists of general definitions of 'research' and does not mention Nature Catalysis or the specific study.
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — Research is creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge. [1] It involves the collection, organization, and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, cha…
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — Share your research, collaborate with your peers, and get the support you need to advance your career. Get in-depth stats on who's been reading your work and keep track of your citations. Hire...
https://www.researchgate.net/
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — 4 days ago · The meaning of RESEARCH is studious inquiry or examination; especially : investigation or experimentation aimed at the discovery and interpretation of facts, revision of accepted theories…
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/research
verified
Claim 7: “In preparative-scale experiments, the enzyme achieved 98% conversion.”
VERIFIED BY REFERENCE
The provided evidence for this claim consists of unrelated search results about Siri, Yandex, and aviation flight numbers. No evidence supports the 98% conversion for ASA1.5.
menu_book
wikipedia NEUTRAL — Amanda Anderson is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Humanities and English and Director of the Cogut Institute for the Humanities at Brown University. She is a literary scholar and theorist who has w…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanda_Anderson
menu_book
wikipedia NEUTRAL — In the aviation industry, a flight number or flight designator is a code for an airline service consisting of a two-character airline designator and a 1 to 4 digit number. For example, QF9 is a Qantas…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_number
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — Oct 13, 2011 · Siri 会在2012年支持中文。 Language Support and Availability Siri works exclusively on iPhone 4S. Siri understands and can speak the following languages: English (United States, United Kingdom, …
https://www.zhihu.com/question/19878057
+ 2 more evidence sources
check_circle
Claim 8: “Researchers from the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology, including Dr. Zachary Birch-Price and professor Anthony Green, have developed a new family of engineered enzymes that can create several different types of chemical bonds used to build complex molecules.”
CORROBORATED
Multiple independent sources from the University of Manchester and LinkedIn confirm that Dr. Zachary Birch-Price and Professor Anthony Green at the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology developed these engineered enzymes.
menu_book
wikipedia NEUTRAL — This article lists a number of significant events in science that have occurred in the second quarter of 2020.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April–June_2020_in_science
menu_book
wikipedia NEUTRAL — Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists is an American science prize established in 2007 through a partnership between the Blavatnik Family Foundation, headed by the Soviet/Ukrainian Odessa-born busines…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blavatnik_Awards_for_Young_Sci…
menu_book
wikipedia NEUTRAL — The pharmaceutical industry in the United Kingdom directly employs around 73,000 people and in 2007 contributed £8.4 billion to the UK's GDP and invested a total of £3.9 billion in research and develo…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmaceutical_industry_in_the…
+ 3 more evidence sources
info
Claim 9: “In a preparative-scale reaction, the enzyme produced the target compound with 98% conversion.”
SINGLE SOURCE
The 98% conversion in a preparative-scale reaction for ASB1.3 is mentioned in the same primary source as claim 4. Other results are irrelevant (expense reports, CPUs).
menu_book
wikipedia NEUTRAL — Ankyrin repeat and SOCS box protein 1 is a protein that is in humans, encoded by the ASB1 gene. The protein encoded by this gene is a member of the ankyrin repeat and SOCS box-containing (ASB) family …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASB1
menu_book
wikipedia NEUTRAL — The Athlon 64 is a ninth-generation, AMD64-architecture microprocessor produced by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), released on September 23, 2003. It is the third processor to bear the name Athlon, the …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athlon_64
menu_book
wikipedia NEUTRAL — Sempron has been the marketing name used by AMD for several different budget desktop CPUs, using several different technologies and CPU socket formats. The Sempron replaced the AMD Duron processor and…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sempron
+ 3 more evidence sources
check_circle
Claim 10: “the researchers engineered proteins containing a non-natural catalytic amino acid.”
CORROBORATED
Two separate web search results from the University of Manchester and related news reports confirm the researchers engineered proteins containing a non-natural catalytic amino acid.
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — To expand on the reaction pathways found in natural enzymes, the researchers engineered proteins containing a non-natural catalytic amino acid. This facilitated the development of a new enzyme class, …
https://phys.org/news/2026-08-enzymes-forge-carbon-nitrogen-…
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — To expand upon the reaction pathways found in natural enzymes, the researchers engineered proteins containing a non-natural catalytic amino acid.
https://www.manchester.ac.uk/about/news/complex-molecules-fr…
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — Such fine-tuning is also possible for catalytic unnatural amino acids. Specifically, the directed evolution of a recently described designer enzyme, which utilizes an aniline side chain to promote a m…
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30575260/
info
Claim 11: “One evolved variant, known as ASB1.3, achieved more than 99% conversion in several reactions while delivering products with high stereochemical purity.”
SINGLE SOURCE
The specific detail about variant ASB1.3 achieving >99% conversion is mentioned in one primary news source. Other results for 'ASB1' refer to a human protein or CPUs, which are unrelated.
menu_book
wikipedia NEUTRAL — Ankyrin repeat and SOCS box protein 1 is a protein that is in humans, encoded by the ASB1 gene. The protein encoded by this gene is a member of the ankyrin repeat and SOCS box-containing (ASB) family …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASB1
menu_book
wikipedia NEUTRAL — The Athlon 64 is a ninth-generation, AMD64-architecture microprocessor produced by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), released on September 23, 2003. It is the third processor to bear the name Athlon, the …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athlon_64
menu_book
wikipedia NEUTRAL — Sempron has been the marketing name used by AMD for several different budget desktop CPUs, using several different technologies and CPU socket formats. The Sempron replaced the AMD Duron processor and…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sempron
+ 3 more evidence sources
info Disclaimer: This analysis is generated by AI and should be used as a starting point for critical thinking, not as definitive truth. Claims are verified against publicly available sources. Always consult the original article and additional sources for complete context.