Alcohol dehydrogenase 4 is an
enzyme
An enzyme () is a protein that acts as a biological catalyst by accelerating chemical reactions. The molecules upon which enzymes may act are called substrate (chemistry), substrates, and the enzyme converts the substrates into different mol ...
that in humans is encoded by the ''ADH4''
gene
In biology, the word gene has two meanings. The Mendelian gene is a basic unit of heredity. The molecular gene is a sequence of nucleotides in DNA that is transcribed to produce a functional RNA. There are two types of molecular genes: protei ...
.
This gene encodes class II
alcohol dehydrogenase
Alcohol dehydrogenases (ADH) () are a group of dehydrogenase enzymes that occur in many organisms and facilitate the interconversion between alcohols and aldehydes or ketones with the reduction of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) to N ...
4 pi subunit, which is a member of the alcohol dehydrogenase family. Members of this enzyme family metabolize a wide variety of substrates, including ethanol,
retinol
Retinol, also called vitamin A1, is a fat-soluble vitamin in the vitamin A family that is found in food and used as a dietary supplement. Retinol or other forms of vitamin A are needed for vision, cellular development, maintenance of skin and ...
, other aliphatic alcohols, hydroxysteroids, and
lipid peroxidation
Lipid peroxidation, or lipid oxidation, is a complex chemical process that leads to oxidative degradation of lipids, resulting in the formation of peroxide and hydroperoxide derivatives.{{Cite journal , last1=Ayala , first1=Antonio , last2=Muñoz ...
products. Class II alcohol dehydrogenase is a
homodimer
In biochemistry, a protein dimer is a macromolecular complex or protein multimer, multimer formed by two protein monomers, or single proteins, which are usually Non-covalent interaction, non-covalently bound. Many macromolecules, such as proteins ...
composed of 2 pi subunits. It exhibits a high activity for oxidation of long-chain aliphatic alcohols and aromatic alcohols and is less sensitive to pyrazole. This gene is localized to
chromosome 4
Chromosome 4 is one of the 23 pairs of chromosomes in humans. People normally have two copies of this chromosome. Chromosome 4 spans more than 190 million base pairs (the building material of DNA) and represents between 6 and 6.5 percent of the to ...
in the cluster of alcohol dehydrogenase genes.
There is evidence that ancestors of modern humans developed the ADH4 producing gene some 10 million years ago. This probably helped them to take advantage of rotting fruit as they shifted to a terrestrial lifestyle.
References
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External links
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{{gene-4-stub