Body Temperature Controls Enzyme Activity

A new study at Freie Universität Berlin shows how body temperature regulates certain enzymes and biological processes. No 033/2020 from Feb 13, 2020 Researchers from Freie Universität Berlin's Institute of Chemistry and Biochemistry have shown that the activity of a class of enzymes is directly controlled by subtle changes in body temperature. This mechanism may help provide answers to the long-standing question of how temperature-dependent sex determination in reptiles is controlled. The study was published in the prestigious scientific journal Molecular Cell . A research team at Freie Universität Berlin has discovered a class of enzymes, CDC-like kinases, whose activity changes as a function of very subtle shifts in body temperature to control gene expression globally. "Our body temperature changes by 1-2°C between day and night. The enzymes we have characterized are active during the resting phase, when our body temperature is around 36°C, but they are inactivated during the active day, when our body temperature rises to around 37°C.