CAZy is a database of Carbohydrate-Active enZYmes (CAZymes). The database contains a classification and associated information about

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 ...

s involved in the synthesis, metabolism, and recognition of complex

carbohydrate A carbohydrate () is a biomolecule composed of carbon (C), hydrogen (H), and oxygen (O) atoms. The typical hydrogen-to-oxygen atomic ratio is 2:1, analogous to that of water, and is represented by the empirical formula (where ''m'' and ''n'' ...

s, i.e.

disaccharide A disaccharide (also called a double sugar or ''biose'') is the sugar formed when two monosaccharides are joined by glycosidic linkage. Like monosaccharides, disaccharides are simple sugars soluble in water. Three common examples are sucrose, ...

oligosaccharide An oligosaccharide (; ) is a carbohydrate, saccharide polymer containing a small number (typically three to ten) of monosaccharides (simple sugars). Oligosaccharides can have many functions including Cell–cell recognition, cell recognition and ce ...

polysaccharide Polysaccharides (), or polycarbohydrates, are the most abundant carbohydrates found in food. They are long-chain polymeric carbohydrates composed of monosaccharide units bound together by glycosidic linkages. This carbohydrate can react with wat ...

s, and glycoconjugates. Included in the database are families of

glycoside hydrolase In biochemistry, glycoside hydrolases (also called glycosidases or glycosyl hydrolases) are a class of enzymes which catalysis, catalyze the hydrolysis of glycosidic bonds in polysaccharide, complex sugars. They are extremely common enzymes, wi ...

glycosyltransferase Glycosyltransferases (GTFs, Gtfs) are enzymes ( EC 2.4) that establish natural glycosidic linkages. They catalyze the transfer of saccharide moieties from an activated nucleotide sugar (also known as the "glycosyl donor") to a nucleophilic gl ...

s, polysaccharide

lyase In biochemistry, a lyase is an enzyme that catalyzes the breaking (an elimination reaction) of various chemical bonds by means other than hydrolysis (a substitution reaction) and oxidation Redox ( , , reduction–oxidation or oxidatio ...

s, carbohydrate

esterase In biochemistry, an esterase is a class of enzyme that splits esters into an acid and an alcohol in a chemical reaction with water called hydrolysis (and as such, it is a type of hydrolase). A wide range of different esterases exist that differ ...

s, and non-catalytic

carbohydrate-binding module In molecular biology, a carbohydrate-binding module (CBM) is a protein domain found in carbohydrate-active enzymes (for example glycoside hydrolases). The majority of these domains have carbohydrate-binding activity. Some of th ...

s. The CAZy database also includes a classification of Auxiliary Activity

redox Redox ( , , reduction–oxidation or oxidation–reduction) is a type of chemical reaction in which the oxidation states of the reactants change. Oxidation is the loss of electrons or an increase in the oxidation state, while reduction is t ...

enzymes involved in the breakdown of

lignocellulose Lignocellulose refers to plant dry matter (biomass), so called lignocellulosic biomass. It is the most abundantly available raw material on the Earth for the production of Biofuel, biofuels. It is composed of two kinds of carbohydrate polymers, c ...

. CAZy was established in 1999 in order to provide online and constantly updated access to the

protein sequence Protein primary structure is the linear sequence of amino acids in a peptide or protein. By convention, the primary structure of a protein is reported starting from the amino-terminal (N) end to the carboxyl-terminal (C) end. Protein biosynthe ...

-based family classification of CAZymes, which was originally developed in early 1990s to classify the

s. New entries are added shortly after they appear in the daily releases of

GenBank The GenBank sequence database is an open access, annotated collection of all publicly available nucleotide sequences and their protein translations. It is produced and maintained by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI; a par ...

. The rapid evolution of high-throughput

DNA sequencing DNA sequencing is the process of determining the nucleic acid sequence – the order of nucleotides in DNA. It includes any method or technology that is used to determine the order of the four bases: adenine, thymine, cytosine, and guanine. The ...

has resulted in the continuing exponential growth of the CAZy database, which now covers hundreds of thousands of sequences.Current statistics are available on eac
Glycoside Hydrolase
an

section page. CAZy continues to be curated and developed by the Glycogenomics group at AFMB, a research centre affiliated with the

French National Centre for Scientific Research The French National Centre for Scientific Research (, , CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe. In 2016, it employed 31,637 staff, including 11,137 tenured researchers, 13,415 engi ...

and

Aix-Marseille University Aix-Marseille University (AMU; ; formally incorporated as ) is a Public university, public research university located in the Provence region of southern France. It was founded in 1409 when Louis II of Anjou, List of rulers of Provence, Count of ...

. The CAZy database is coupled with
CAZypedia
', which was launched in 2007 as a research community-driven,

wiki A wiki ( ) is a form of hypertext publication on the internet which is collaboratively edited and managed by its audience directly through a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages that can either be edited by the public or l ...

-based encyclopedia of CAZymes.

Classification

CAZy identifies evolutionarily related families of glycosyl hydrolases using the classification introduced by Bernard Henrissat. These families are given a number to identify them, so for example Glycosyl hydrolase family 1 contains enzymes that possess a

TIM barrel The TIM barrel (triose-phosphate isomerase), also known as an alpha/beta barrel, is a conserved protein fold consisting of eight alpha helices (α-helices) and eight parallel beta strands (β-strands) that alternate along the peptide backbone. ...

fold. These families are clustered into 14 different clans that share structural similarity. CAZy contains 94 families of Glycosyl transferase enzymes, 22 families of polysaccharide lysases and 16 families of carbohydrate esterases.

References

External links

* * {{cite encyclopedia , url = http://www.cazypedia.org/ , title = CAZypedia , encyclopedia = The Encyclopedia of Carbohydrate-Active Enzymes Enzyme databases Protein classification