to prephenate in water were calculated with DFT using Gaussian 16. Structure optimization and frequency calculations at the reactant (chorismate), transition and product (prephenate) states were performed with the B3LYP functional and the 6-31G(d,p) basis set. Dispersion effects were included in all calculations using Grimme's B3LYP-D3 method. Intrinsic reaction coordinate calculations were performed in both directions from the TS to verify that the correct minima are connected. Electronic energies were obtained from single-point calculations on the optimized geometries (RS, TS and PS) at the B3LYP/6-311G+(2d,2p) level of theory. The final energies reported are corrected for zero-point energy (ZPE), dispersion and solvation effects calculated with the CPCM 25 model using water as solvent (eps=80). The same procedure was also performed with the M06-2X 26 functional for comparison. In contrast to B3LYP, dispersion corrections are already included in the M06-2X functional, so this was not added explicitly.