Pseudoenzyme

Pseudoenzymes are variants of enzymes (usually proteins) that are catalytically-deficient (usually inactive), meaning that they perform little or no enzyme catalysis. ^[1] They are believed to be represented in all major enzyme families in the kingdoms of life, where they have important signaling and metabolic functions, many of which are only now coming to light.^[2] Pseudoenzymes are becoming increasingly important to analyse, especially as the bioinformatic analysis of genomes reveals their ubiquity. Their important regulatory and sometimes disease-associated functions in metabolic and signalling pathways are also shedding new light on the non-catalytic functions of active enzymes, of moonlighting proteins,^[3][4] the re-purposing of proteins in distinct cellular roles (Protein moonlighting). They are also suggesting new ways to target and interpret cellular signalling mechanisms using small molecules and drugs.^[5] The most intensively analyzed, and certainly the best understood pseudoenzymes in terms of cellular signalling functions are probably the pseudokinases, the pseudoproteases and the pseudophosphatases. Recently, the pseudo-deubiquitylases have also begun to gain prominence.^[6][7]