79 by: Claire Minette
Student – Claire Minette
Enzyme name: Urease
E.C. number: EC 3.5.1.5
Where is the urease enzyme found? Urease can be found in different pathogenic bacteria, such as Heliobacter pylori or Staphylococcus species. It can also be found in the soil and in the human body.
What does urease do? In plants, urease helps metabolizing nitrogen from urea that plants need for growth. In bacteria, urease neutralizes the acidic environments by producing ammonia, a product of urea hydrolysis. Animals like cows do not produce urease, they take it up through bacteria where it enters the digestive system.
Urease is an enzyme responsible for breaking down urea for example in the human body, leading to an increase in pH. Urease in the human body is responsible for protein degradation and its virulence factor may lead to illnesses such as atherosclerosis or rheumatoid arthritis.
The hydrolysis of urea leads to ammonia and carbamate production, carbamate then decomposes into ammonia and carbonic acid. The equilibrium between ammonia, carbonic acid and their protonated and deprotonated forms leads to a pH increase.
More interesting facts about urease – Urease is the first enzyme to be crystallized. In 1926 James B. Sumner, an American chemist successfully crystallized urease from jack beans.
References
Mazzei, L., Musiani, F., & Ciurli, S. (2021, February 16). The structure-based reaction mechanism of urease, a nickel dependent enzyme: Tale of a long debate – JBIC journal of biological inorganic chemistry. SpringerLink. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00775-020-01808-w
Hussain, Asim & Jahan, Nazish & Jabeen, Zara & Khalil, · & Rehman, Ur & Rafeeq, Hamza & Bilal, Muhammad & Hafiz, · & Iqbal, M & Hussain, · & Rehman, · & Rafeeq, & Jahan, N & Jabeen, Zara & Iqbal, Hafiz. (2021). Synergistic Effect of Urease and Nitrification Inhibitors in the Reduction of Ammonia Volatilization. Water, Air, & Soil Pollution. 232. 10.1007/s11270-021-05259-0.
Holliday, G. L., Bartlett, G. J., Almonacid, D. E., Waters, A., & Porter, C. (n.d.). Mechanism and catalytic site Atlas. M-CSA Mechanism and Catalytic Site Atlas. https://www.ebi.ac.uk/thornton-srv/m-csa/entry/87/ M-CSA has been funded by EMBL and the Wellcome Trust. It is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License.
Konieczna I, Zarnowiec P, Kwinkowski M, Kolesinska B, Fraczyk J, Kaminski Z, Kaca W. Bacterial urease and its role in long-lasting human diseases. Curr Protein Pept Sci. 2012 Dec;13(8):789-806. doi: 10.2174/138920312804871094. PMID: 23305365; PMCID: PMC3816311.
James B. Sumner – Facts. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Prize Outreach AB 2024. Tue. 15 Oct 2024. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/1946/sumner/facts/
