Function
Proteins of the matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) family are involved in the breakdown of extracellular matrix in normal physiological processes, such as embryonic development, reproduction, and tissue remodeling, as well as in disease processes, such as arthritis and metastasis. Most MMP's are secreted as inactive proproteins. The prodomain is cleaved by extracellular proteinases when the enzyme is activated. The active enzyme is constituted by two domains, the catalytic domain resposnsible for its enzymatic activity and the hemopexin-like domain that in some MMPs plays a role in substrate recognition and can contribute to increasing catalytic efficiency. It is thought that the protein encoded by this gene is cleaved at both ends to yield the active enzyme, but this processing has not been fully described. The enzyme degrades soluble and insoluble elastin. The gene is part of a cluster of MMP genes which localize to chromosome 11q22.3.
Read more about this topic: Matrix Metallopeptidase 12
Famous quotes containing the word function:
“Literature does not exist in a vacuum. Writers as such have a definite social function exactly proportional to their ability as writers. This is their main use.”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)
“Advocating the mere tolerance of difference between women is the grossest reformism. It is a total denial of the creative function of difference in our lives. Difference must be not merely tolerated, but seen as a fund of necessary polarities between which our creativity can spark like a dialectic.”
—Audre Lorde (1934–1992)
“It is the function of vice to keep virtue within reasonable bounds.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)