Accelerated hydrolysis of esters catalyzed by receptors, I - Nonenzymatic cleavage of p-nitrophenyl acetate by polypeptides

The hydrolysis kinetics of p-nitrophenyl acetate by basic polypeptides with a variety of amino acid residues were analyzed. The results suggest that the tertiary structure of microenvironment brought about by random coil assembly is more important as a binding site than the number of basic residues (catalytic sites).