Proteases are a diverse and important group of enzymes representing
>2% of the human, chimapnzee, mouse and rat genomes. This group of genes is
implicated in numerous physiological processes and their importance is
illustrated by the existance of 74 different hereditary diseases due to
mutations in some of these genes. Furthermore, proteases had been
implicated in many human pathologies, including vascular diseases,
rheumatoid arthritis, neurodegenerative processes or cancer. Our
laboratory has been studying this group of enzymes, and during the last
ten years it has identified and characterized more than 60 human
protease genes.
Due to the importance of proteolytic enzymes in human physiology and pathology, we have recently introduced the concept of Degradome, as the complete repertoire of proteases expressed by a tissue or organism. Thanks to the recent completion of the human, mouse and rat genome sequencing projects, we were able to analyze and compare by first time the complete protease repertoire in those three mammalian organisms, as well as the complement of protease inhibitor genes coded by those genomes. This webpage contains the Supplementary Material to the Genome sequence of the brown Norway rat yields insights into mammalian evolution Nature (2004) 428: 493-521, and A genomic analysis of rat proteases and protease inhibitors Genome Res. (2004) 14: 609-622, and is intended to provide un updated version of human, mouse and rat proteases and protease inhibitors, as well as as the growing number of hereditary diseases caused by mutations in protease genes. Analysis of the human and mouse genomes has allowed us to annotate 561 human, 641 mouse and 626 rat protease genes. Proteases are classified in five different classes according to their mechanism of catalysis. Follow the links on the left to browse each protease class.
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