The Mammalian Degradome Database

Proteases are a diverse and important group of enzymes representing >2% of the human, chimpanzee, mouse and rat genomes. This group of enzymes is implicated in numerous physiological processes. The importance of proteases is illustrated by the existence of 84 different hereditary diseases due to mutations in protease genes. Furthermore, proteases have been implicated in multiple human pathologies, including vascular diseases, rheumatoid arthritis, neurodegenerative processes, and cancer. During the last ten years, our laboratory has identified and characterized more than 60 human protease genes.

Due to the importance of proteolytic enzymes in human physiology and pathology, we have recently introduced the concept of Degradome, as the complete repertoire of proteases expressed by a tissue or organism. Thanks to the recent completion of the human, chimpanzee, mouse, and rat genome sequencing projects, we were able to analyze and compare for the first time the complete protease repertoire in those mammalian organisms, as well as the complement of protease inhibitor genes. This webpage is a repository of this information, as described in The Degradome database: mammalian proteases and diseases of proteolysis Nucleic Acids Res (2008).

This webpage also contains the Supplementary Material of Human and mouse proteases: a comparative genomic approach Nat Rev Genet (2003) 4: 544-558, Genome sequence of the brown Norway rat yields insights into mammalian evolution Nature (2004) 428: 493-521, A genomic analysis of rat proteases and protease inhibitors Genome Res. (2004) 14: 609-622, and Comparative genomic analysis of human and chimpanzee proteases Genomics (2005) 86: 638-647.

The aim of this webpage is to provide an updated version of human, chimpanzee, mouse, and rat proteases and protease inhibitors, as well as as the growing number of hereditary diseases caused by mutations in protease genes.  Analysis of the human and mouse genomes has allowed us to annotate 570 human, 570 chimpanzee, 656 mouse, and 646 rat protease genes. Proteases are classified in five different classes according to their mechanism of catalysis. Follow the links on the left to browse each protease class.