Orphan enzymes could be an unexplored reservoir of new drug targets.
Despite the immense progress of genomics, and the current availability of several hundreds of thousands of amino acid sequences, >39% of well-defined enzyme activities (as represented by enzyme commission, EC, numbers) are not associated with any sequence. There is an urgent need to explore the 1525 orphan enzymes (enzymes having EC numbers without an associated sequence) to bridge the wide gap that separates knowledge of biochemical function and sequence information. Strikingly, orphan enzymes can even be found among enzymatic activities successfully used as drug targets. Here, knowledge of sequence would help to develop molecular-targeted therapies, suppressing many drug-related side-effects.
Institut de Génétique et Microbiologie, CNRS UMR 8621, Université Paris Sud, Bâtiment 400, 91405 Orsay Cedex, France.
Olivier
O
Lespinet
Bernard
B
Labedan
D000818:Animals; D015195:Drug Design; D004791:Enzyme Inhibitors / Q000737:chemistry / Q000494:pharmacology*; D004798:Enzymes / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000235:genetics; D023281:Genomics; D006801:Humans; D020539:Sequence Analysis, Protein
D004791:Enzyme Inhibitors; D004798:Enzymes