Dietmar Schomburg

Dörte Stephan

The objective of the Enzyme Handbook is to provide in concise form data on enzymes sufficiently well characterized. The data sheets are arranged in their EC number sequence, volumes 15 to 17 contain Additional Enzymes and updated data sheets to be inserted in previous volumes by their EC-number. For each enzyme, systematic and common names are given, information on reaction type, substrate and product spectrum, inhibitors, cofactors, kinetic data, pH and temperature range, origin, purification, molecular data and storage conditions are listed. A reference list completes the data sheets. This collection is an indispensable source of information for researchers applying enzymes in analysis, synthe.

First Supplement Part 2 Class 3: Hydrolases

Enzyme Handbook 16

Today, as the large international genome sequence projects are gaining a great amount of public attention and huge sequence data bases are created it be comes more and more obvious that we are very limited in our ability to access functional data for the gene products - the proteins, in particular for enzymes. Those data are inherently very difficult to collect, interpret and standardize as they are highly distributed among journals from different fields and are often sub ject to experimental conditions. Nevertheless a systematic collection is essential for our interpretation of the genome information and more so for possible appli cations of this knowledge in the fields of medicine, agriculture, etc .. Recent pro gress on enzyme immobilization, enzyme production, enzyme inhibition, coen zyme regeneration and enzyme engineering has opened up fascinating new fields for the potential application of enzymes in a large range of different areas. It is the functional profile of an enzyme that enables a biologist or physician to analyse a metabolic pathway and its disturbance; it is the substrate specificity of an enzyme which tells an analytical biochemist how to design an assay; it is the stability, specificity and efficiency of an enzyme which determines its usefulness in the biotechnical transformation of a molecule. And the sum of all these data will have to be considered when the designer of artificial biocatalysts has to choose the optimum prototype to start with.

Volume 17: First Supplement Part 3

Enzyme Handbook 17

Recent progress on enzyme immobilisation, enzyme production, coenzyme regeneration and enzyme engineering has opened up fascinating new fields for the potential application of enzymes in a large range of different areas. As more progress in research and application of enzymes has been made the Iack of an up-to-date overview of enzyme molecular properties has become more apparent. Therefore, we started the development of an enzyme data in formation system as part of protein-design activities at GBF. The present book "Enzyme Handbook" represents the printed version of this data bank. ln future a computer searchable versionwill be also available. The enzymes in this Handbock are arranged according to the Enzyme Commission Iist of enzymes. Some 3000 "different" enzymes will be covered. Frequently enzymes with very different properties are included under the same EC number. Although we intend to give a representative overview on the characteristics and variability of each enzyme the Handbock is not a com pendium. The readerwill have to go to the primary Iiterature for more detailed information. Naturally it is not possible to cover all the numerous Iiterature references for each enzyme (for special enzymes up to 40000) if the data re presentation is tobe concise as is intended.

Dörte Stephan

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