Publication in Nature Communications

We have just published an article in Nature Communications (https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-60016-9) in which we studied an esterase from a marine bacterium, which contains a novel catalytic triad architecture lacking the typical aspartate for polarization of the histidine. Instead, it contains a precisely coordinated water molecule mediating contact between the His and Asp. This coordinated water in the Ser-His-(H2O-Asp/Asn) motif is crucial for catalytic activity and represents a water-mediated catalytic triad. We are grateful to the German Research Foundation for funding of this research within our POMPU project.