Ester hydrolysis of calcein-AM in a lipid bilayer demonstrates the concept of lipozyme catalysis

Kiran Kumar – @KiranKumar86269

Lipids are not typically thought to catalyze biological reactions, but evidence shows that certain lipid aggregates can speed up chemical reactions in synthetic organic chemistry. We demonstrate the potential for the hydrophobic region of a lipid bilayer to provide an environment suitable for catalysis as lipozyme. We demonstrate this concept by the ester hydrolysis of calcein-AM to produce calcein as a fluorescent product, Which is a widely used assay for esterase activity in cells. The reaction product was characterized by microscopy and 1H-NMR measurements. Overall, we explore the implications of considering lipid aggregates as catalytic entities