Main description:

Enzymes are applied in organic synthesis and in analytical chemistry, in industrial production processes of pharmaceuticals and in food processing. Finding a suitable enzyme for a desired transformation or with a de- fined specificity is not always an easy task. More than 3000 enzymes are well described to date. The Enzyme Handbook provides all the information for selecting the proper enzyme to perform defined transformations in a given environment. The Enzyme Handbook devotes a variable number of pages for each enzyme, depending on the amount of information available with the EC number as ordering criterion within a volume. Revised data sheets can be released for individual enzymes and newly characterized enzymes and they can easily be sorted into the binders at the appropriate place. Each data sheet is divided into 7 sections: - Nomenclature (EC number, Systematic name, Recom- mended name, Synonyms, CAS Reg. No.) - Reaction and specificity (Catalysed reaction, Reaction type, Natural substrates, Substrate spectrum, Product spectrum, Inhibitors, Cofactors/prosthetic groups, Metal compounds/salts, Turnover number, Specific activity, KM-value, pH-optimum, pH-range, Tem- perature optimum, Temperature range) - Enzyme structure (Molecular weight, Subunits, Glyco-/Lipoprotein) - Isolation/Preparation (Source organism, Source tissue, Localisation in source, Purification, Crystallization, Cloned, Renatured) - Stability (pH, Temperature, Oxidation, Organic sol- vent, General stability information, Storage) - Cross-References (to Structure Data Banks) - Literature references