Serum paraoxonase/arylesterase 2 is an

enzyme Enzymes () are proteins that act as biological catalysts by accelerating chemical reactions. The molecules upon which enzymes may act are called substrate (chemistry), substrates, and the enzyme converts the substrates into different molecule ...

that in humans is encoded by the ''PON2''

gene In biology, the word gene (from , ; "... Wilhelm Johannsen coined the word gene to describe the Mendelian units of heredity..." meaning ''generation'' or ''birth'' or ''gender'') can have several different meanings. The Mendelian gene is a b ...

. This gene encodes a member of the

paraoxonase Paraoxonases are a family of mammalian enzymes with aryldialkylphosphatase activity. There are three paraoxonase isozymes, which were originally discovered for their involvement in the hydrolysis of organophosphates. Research has indicated the ...

gene family, which includes three known members located adjacent to each other on the long arm of

chromosome 7 Chromosome 7 is one of the 23 pairs of chromosomes in humans, who normally have two copies of this chromosome. Chromosome 7 spans about 159 million base pairs (the building material of DNA) and represents between 5 and 5.5 percent of the total D ...

. The encoded protein is ubiquitously expressed in human tissues, membrane-bound, and may act as a cellular antioxidant, protecting cells from oxidative stress. Hydrolytic activity against acylhomoserine lactones, important bacterial quorum-sensing mediators, suggests the encoded protein may also play a role in defense responses to pathogenic bacteria. Mutations in this gene may be associated with vascular disease and a number of quantitative phenotypes related to diabetes. Alternatively spliced transcript variants encoding different isoforms have been described.

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