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Acetylcholinesterase
Exploring the Structure
The nerve toxin sarin and insecticides such as malathion directly attack the active site machinery of acetylcholinesterase. The structure shown here, from PDB entry 1cfj, shows the active site triad of acetylcholinesterase after being poisoned by sarin. In the normal reaction, the serine amino acid forms a bond to the acetyl group of acetylcholine, breaking the molecule. Then, in a matter of microseconds, a water molecule breaks the new bond, releasing acetic acid and restoring the serine to its original form. Sarin, however, transfers a nasty methylphosphonate group (MeP in the picture) to the serine. The phosphonate is far more stable and will disable the enzyme for hours or days.This picture was created with RasMol. You can create similar pictures by clicking on the accession codes and picking one of the options under View Structure.
A list of all PDB entries related to Acetylcholinesterase as of May, 2004 is available here. For additional information on acetylcholinesterase, click here. For a few movies of acetylcholinesterase in action, take a look at http://www.weizmann.ac.il/sb/faculty_pages/Sussman/movies.html
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Last changed by: A.Honegger,