Transamination by Polymeric Enzyme Mimics

Pyridoxamine was linked to a series of polyethylenimines (PEIs) with M_n=600, 1800, 10,000, and 60,000, both simply permethylated and with additional attached dodecyl chains. They were examined in the transamination of pyruvic acid and of phenylpyruvic acid, and showed Michaelis? Menten behavior. The values of k₂ and of K_M determined showed only small variations with polymer size. Thus, the previously reported strong advantage of pyridoxamines attached to the M_n=60,000 PEI, relative to simple pyridoxamine alone, is seen to almost the same extent with the smaller PEIs.