Chinese Journal of Nature ›› 2015, Vol. 37 ›› Issue (3): 205-214.doi: 10.3969/j.issn.0253-9608.2015.03.006

• History of Natural Science • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Enzymes and life sciences (Ⅱ): Studies on oxidase and ATPase

GUO Xiaoqiang   

  1. Department of Chemical Engineering, Shijiazhuang Vocational Technology Institute, Shijiazhuang 050081, China
  • Received:2013-10-14 Online:2015-06-25 Published:2015-06-29

Abstract: Biological oxidation is the base of energy production in life, also is the basic guarantee of life which can be maintained. The discovery of cytochrome oxidase opened the prelude of modern biological oxidation research. Then, a large number of oxidases were identified to deepen the understanding of oxygen utilization. On the other side, the identification of dehydrogenases and cofactors further enhances the understanding of nature of biological oxidation process, that is, hydrogen and oxygen are combined to form water and to release energy to promote ATP production. The discoveries of ATP synthase and Na+, K+-ATP enzyme promote the researches on mechanism of ATP generation and utilization. The catalysis of many enzymes required ATP, such as ubiquitin related enzymes, so the researches on these enzymes expanded the understanding on intracellular metabolism. In this paper, the development process of biological oxidation (also known as bioenergetics) was described to show the importance of oxidases and ATPases.