alpha-Mannosidase is an enzyme

Enzyme

Enzymes are proteins that catalyze chemical reactions. In enzymatic reactions, the molecules at the beginning of the process, called substrates, are converted into different molecules, called products. Almost all chemical reactions in a biological cell need enzymes in order to occur at rates...

 involved in the cleavage of the alpha form of mannose

Mannose

Mannose is a sugar monomer of the aldohexose series of carbohydrates. Mannose is a C-2 epimer of glucose. It is not part of human metabolism, but is a component of microbial cell walls, and is therefore a target of the immune system and also of antibiotics....

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Isozymes

Humans express the following three alpha-mannosidase isozymes:

Applications

It can be utilized in experiments that determine the effects of the presence or absence of mannose on specific molecules, such as recombinant proteins that are used in vaccine development.

External links

• GeneReviews/NCBI/NIH/UW entry on Alpha-Mannosidosis
• OMIM entries on Alpha-Mannosidosis