This article provides a simplified description of these enzymes and how they work, as well as a brief discussion of their relevance to anti-HIV drug therapy. After administering these agents to laboratory animals, they noted in many instances that the chemicals were quickly converted into forms that were less toxic and could be easily eliminated from the body. At about that same time, scientists studying the activity of different types of drugs were finding the same thing in humans. Many of these substances also were being chemically altered before elimination. What made these findings unusual was how these chemical detoxifications and alterations had occurred.
Enzymes are protein molecules that serve as biological catalysts.
With few exceptions, each of the tens of thousands of chemical reactions that comprise the life process is made possible by a particular enzyme. At the time that the new observations were made in the 1950s, scientific understanding of enzymes was not highly advanced. Thus, a surprise. Back to top Protecting Against Foreign Substances B iochemists in laboratories throughout the world took up the hunt to identify these enzymes and determine how they worked. Eventually, it was found that more than one group of enzymes was responsible for the chemical transformation of foreign compounds.