Enzyme Allostery: Now Controllable by Light (Cell Chemical Biology)

In this issue of Cell Chemical Biology, the Sterner lab reports the application of photoswitchable unnatural amino acids in controlling protein allostery in the enzyme complex imidazole glycerol phosphate synthase (Kneuttinger et al., 2019). Remarkable switching in enzyme activity was achieved upon photoisomerization of an azobenzene amino acid.