Barrett Alan J, Rawlings Neil D
Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton, UK.
Biol Chem. 2007 Nov;388(11):1151-7. doi: 10.1515/BC.2007.151.
A good system for the naming and classification of peptidases can contribute much to the study of these enzymes. Having already described the building of families and clans in the MEROPS system, we here focus on the lowest level in the hierarchy, in which the huge number of individual peptidase proteins are assigned to a lesser number of what we term 'species' of peptidases. Just over 2000 peptidase species are recognised today, but we estimate that 25 000 will one day be known. Each species is built around a peptidase protein that has been adequately characterised. The cluster of peptidase proteins that represent the single species is then assembled primarily by analysis of a sequence 'tree' for the family. Each peptidase species is given a systematic identifier and a summary page of data regarding it is assembled. Because the characterisation of new peptidases lags far behind the sequencing, the majority of peptidase proteins are so far known only as amino acid sequences and cannot yet be assigned to species. We suggest that new forms of analysis of the sequences of the unassigned peptidases may give early indications of how they will cluster into the new species of the future.
一个良好的肽酶命名和分类系统对这些酶的研究大有帮助。我们已经在《肽酶数据库》系统中描述了家族和氏族的构建，在此我们关注层次结构的最底层，在这一层中，大量的单个肽酶蛋白被归入数量较少的我们所称的肽酶“种类”中。目前已识别出2000多种肽酶种类，但我们估计终有一天会知道25000种。每个种类围绕一种已得到充分表征的肽酶蛋白构建。然后，主要通过分析该家族的序列“树”来组装代表单个种类的肽酶蛋白簇。为每个肽酶种类赋予一个系统标识符，并汇编有关它的数据汇总页面。由于新肽酶的表征远远落后于测序，到目前为止，大多数肽酶蛋白仅作为氨基酸序列为人所知，尚无法归入种类。我们认为，对未分类肽酶序列的新分析形式可能会尽早表明它们将如何聚类成未来的新种类。
