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Unexpected Reaction Pathway For Butyrylcholinesterase-Catalyzed Inactivation Of "Hunger Hormone" Ghrelin, Jianzhuang Yao, Yaxia Yuan, Fang Zheng, Chang-Guo Zhan

Molecular Modeling and Biopharmaceutical Center Faculty Publications

Extensive computational modeling and simulations have been carried out, in the present study, to uncover the fundamental reaction pathway for butyrylcholinesterase (BChE)-catalyzed hydrolysis of ghrelin, demonstrating that the acylation process of BChE-catalyzed hydrolysis of ghrelin follows an unprecedented single-step reaction pathway and the single-step acylation process is rate-determining. The free energy barrier (18.8 kcal/mol) calculated for the rate-determining step is reasonably close to the experimentally-derived free energy barrier (~19.4 kcal/mol), suggesting that the obtained mechanistic insights are reasonable. The single-step reaction pathway for the acylation is remarkably different from the well-known two-step acylation reaction pathway for numerous ester hydrolysis reactions …