enzyme riboswitch proteins 3d max - Riboswitch Protein... by MichaelTaylor3D

This is an scientifically accurate representation of an enzyme in High Definition.

In molecular biology, a riboswitch is a part of an mRNA molecule that can directly bind a small target molecule, and whose binding of the target affects the gene's activity.Thus, an mRNA that contains a riboswitch is directly involved in regulating its own activity, in response to the concentrations of its target molecule. The discovery that modern organisms use RNA to bind small molecules, and discriminate against closely related analogs, significantly expanded the known natural capabilities of RNA beyond its ability to code for proteins or to bind other RNA or protein macromolecules.

Enzymes are proteins that catalyze (i.e., increase the rates of) chemical reactions. In enzymatic reactions, the molecules at the beginning of the process are called substrates, and the enzyme converts them into different molecules, called the products. Almost all processes in a biological cell need enzymes to occur at significant rates. Since enzymes are selective for their substrates and speed up only a few reactions from among many possibilities, the set of enzymes made in a cell determines which metabolic pathways occur in that cell.