  The cellular milieu is teeming with biochemical nano-machines whose activity
is a strong source of correlated non-thermal fluctuations termed active noise.
Essential elements of this circuitry are enzymes, catalysts that speed up the
rate of metabolic reactions by orders of magnitude, thereby making life
possible. Here, we examine the possibility that active noise in the cell, or in
vitro, affects enzymatic catalytic rate by accelerating or decelerating the
crossing rate of energy barriers during the reaction. Considering hydrodynamic
perturbations induced by biochemical activity as a source of active noise, we
evaluate their impact on the enzymatic cycle using a combination of analytic
and numerical methods. Our estimates show that the fast component of the active
noise spectrum enhances the rate of enzymes, while reactions remain practically
unaffected by the slow noise spectrum. Revisiting the physics of barrier
crossing under the influence of active hydrodynamic fluctuations suggests that
the biochemical activity of macromolecules such as enzymes is coupled to active
noise. Thus, we propose that enzymatic catalysis is a collective, many-body
process in which enzymes may affect each other's activity via long-range
hydrodynamic interaction, with potential impact on biochemical networks in
living and artificial systems alike.
