Reprolysins and Astacins … Alive, Alive-O

摘要

No one likes to be chewed-up or cut in two, but proteolysis is a fact of life! The abundance and variety of proteases-en- zymes designed for cleaving proteins-un- derscore their importance. Proteases are classified according to their mechanism of action and their structure. Those that re- quire zinc for their activity belong to a large family of metalloproteases that are grouped into subfamilies on the basis of these subfamilies. Recent, exciting reports have identified members of these subfamilies from Drosophila and demonstrated that their pro- teolytic activity is crucial for early patterning Of the embryo (2-4).