Discovery
The sEH was first identified in the cytosolic fraction of mouse liver through its activity on epoxide containing substrates such as juvenile hormone and lipid epoxides such as epoxystearate. The soluble EH activity was shown to be distinct from that of the microsomal epoxide hydrolase (mEH) previously discovered with a different substrate selectivity and cellular localization than the mEH. Studies using a lipid epoxide as a substrate detected this activity in the soluble fraction of multiple organs, though at a lesser amount than in liver and kidney. The enzyme activity was detected in rabbits, mice and rats, and humans, and it is now believed to be ubiquitous in vertebrates. The proposed enzyme was first named cytosolic epoxide hydrolase; however, after its discovery inside the peroxisomes of some organs, it was renamed soluble epoxide hydrolase or sEH.
Read more about this topic: Soluble Epoxide Hydrolase
Famous quotes containing the word discovery:
“We are all humiliated by the sudden discovery of a fact which has existed very comfortably and perhaps been staring at us in private while we have been making up our world entirely without it.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“That the discovery of this great truth, which lies so near and obvious to the mind, should be attained to by the reason of so very few, is a sad instance of the stupidity and inattention of men, who, though they are surrounded with such clear manifestations of the Deity, are yet so little affected by them, that they seem as it were blinded with excess of light.”
—George Berkeley (1685–1753)
“We early arrive at the great discovery that there is one mind common to all individual men: that what is individual is less than what is universal ... that error, vice and disease have their seat in the superficial or individual nature.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)