Dietmar Schomburg

Margit Salzmann

Enzymes are applied in organic synthesis and in analytical chemistry, in industrial production processes of pharmaceuticals and in food processing. Finding a suitable enzyme for a desired transformation or with a de- fined specificity is not always an easy task. More than 3000 enzymes are well described to date. The Enzyme Handbook provides all the information for selecting the proper enzyme to perform defined transformations in a given environment. The Enzyme Handbook devotes a variable number of pages for each enzyme, depending on the amount of information available with the EC number as ordering criterion within a volume. Revised data sheets can be released for individual enzymes and newly characterized enzymes and they can easily be sorted into the binders at the appropriate place. Each data sheet is divided into 7 sections: - Nomenclature (EC number, Systematic name, Recommended name, Synonyms, CAS Reg. No.). - Reaction and specificity (Catalysed reaction, Reaction type, Natural substrates, Substrate spectrum, Product spectrum, Inhibitors, Cofactors/prosthetic groups, Metal compounds/ salts, Turnover number, Specific activity, KM-value, pH-optimum, pH-range, Temperature optimum, Temperature range). - Enzyme structure (Molecular weight, Subunits, Glyco-/Lipoprotein). - Isolation/Preparation (Source organism, Source tissue, Localisation in source, Purification, Crystallization, Cloned, Renatured). - Stability (pH, Temperature, Oxidation, Organic solvent, General stability information, Storage). - Cross-References (to Structure Data Banks). - Literature references.

Volume 3: Class 3: Hydrolases

Enzyme Handbook

Recent progress in 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 more apparent has become the lack of an up-to-date overview of enzyme molecular properties. The need for such a data bank was also expressed by the EC-task force "Biotechnology and Information". Therefore we started the development of an enzyme data information system as part of protein-design activities at GBF. The present book "Enzyme Handbook" represents the printed version of this data bank. In future it is also planned to make a com puter searchable version available. The enzymes in the Handbook are arranged according to the 1984 Enzyme Commission list of enzymes and later supplements. Some 3000 "different" en zymes are covered. Frequently very different enzymes are included under the same E. C. number. Although we intended to give a representative overview on the molecular variability of each enzyme, the Handbook is not a com pendium. The reader will have to go to the primary literature for more detailed information. Naturally it is not possible to cover all numerous, up to 40 000, literature references for each enzyme if data representation is to be concise as is intended.

Margit Salzmann

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