Pyrimidine-nucleoside phosphorylase
Encyclopedia
In enzymology, a pyrimidine-nucleoside phosphorylase is an enzyme
Enzyme
Enzymes are proteins that catalyze chemical reactions. In enzymatic reactions, the molecules at the beginning of the process, called substrates, are converted into different molecules, called products. Almost all chemical reactions in a biological cell need enzymes in order to occur at rates...

 that catalyzes
Catalysis
Catalysis is the change in rate of a chemical reaction due to the participation of a substance called a catalyst. Unlike other reagents that participate in the chemical reaction, a catalyst is not consumed by the reaction itself. A catalyst may participate in multiple chemical transformations....

 the chemical reaction
Chemical reaction
A chemical reaction is a process that leads to the transformation of one set of chemical substances to another. Chemical reactions can be either spontaneous, requiring no input of energy, or non-spontaneous, typically following the input of some type of energy, such as heat, light or electricity...


a pyrimidine nucleoside + phosphate a pyrimidine base + alpha-D-ribose 1-phosphate


Thus, the two substrates
Substrate (biochemistry)
In biochemistry, a substrate is a molecule upon which an enzyme acts. Enzymes catalyze chemical reactions involving the substrate. In the case of a single substrate, the substrate binds with the enzyme active site, and an enzyme-substrate complex is formed. The substrate is transformed into one or...

 of this enzyme are pyrimidine nucleoside and phosphate
Phosphate
A phosphate, an inorganic chemical, is a salt of phosphoric acid. In organic chemistry, a phosphate, or organophosphate, is an ester of phosphoric acid. Organic phosphates are important in biochemistry and biogeochemistry or ecology. Inorganic phosphates are mined to obtain phosphorus for use in...

, whereas its two products
Product (chemistry)
Product are formed during chemical reactions as reagents are consumed. Products have lower energy than the reagents and are produced during the reaction according to the second law of thermodynamics. The released energy comes from changes in chemical bonds between atoms in reagent molecules and...

 are pyrimidine base and alpha-D-ribose 1-phosphate.

This enzyme belongs to the family of glycosyltransferase
Glycosyltransferase
Glycosyltransferases are enzymes that act as a catalyst for the transfer of a monosaccharide unit from an activated nucleotide sugar to a glycosyl acceptor molecule, usually an alcohol....

s, specifically the pentosyltransferases. The systematic name of this enzyme class is pyrimidine-nucleoside:phosphate alpha-D-ribosyltransferase. This enzyme is also called Py-NPase. This enzyme participates in pyrimidine metabolism
Pyrimidine metabolism
Pyrimidine biosynthesis occurs both in the body and through organic synthesis.-De novo biosynthesis of pyrimidine :Unlike purines, pyrimidines are assembled before being attached to 5-phosphoribosyl-1-pyrophosphate ....

.

Structural studies

As of late 2007, two structures
Tertiary structure
In biochemistry and molecular biology, the tertiary structure of a protein or any other macromolecule is its three-dimensional structure, as defined by the atomic coordinates.-Relationship to primary structure:...

 have been solved for this class of enzymes, with PDB
Protein Data Bank
The Protein Data Bank is a repository for the 3-D structural data of large biological molecules, such as proteins and nucleic acids....

accession codes and .
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