Classification of enzymes and catalytic properties

Enzymes are proteins that have essential functions in all vital processes such as metabolism, gene expression, cell division, reactions of the immune system, and others. They play important roles in the biotechnology industry or medical diagnostics due to their very efficient way of catalyzing chemical reactions. The diversity of actions and applications of enzymes are due to different substrate and reaction specificities. Enzymes are actually classified into seven classes, namely oxidoreductases, transferases, hydrolases, lyases, isomerases, ligases, and translocases. The classification is related to the catalyzed reactions. This chapter presents the classification and nomenclature of these powerful biocatalyzers. Their data compilation, in textual and numeric forms, and three-dimensional macromolecular structural data, are very well organized in different available databases such as BRaunschweig ENzyme DAtabase, EXPLORE-ENZ, Carbohydrate-Active Enzymes, Protein Data Bank, and many others.