Letter to the Editor

doi:10.4236/aer.2013.14008

Paper Menu >>

Journal Menu >>

Vol.1, No.4, 77-78 (2013) Advances in Enz yme Research

http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/aer.2013.14008

Letter to the Editor

Amosy E. M’Koma

School of Medicine, Meharry Medical College, Nashville, USA: [email protected]

Received 5 June 2013; revised 8 July 2013; accepted 23 July 2013

which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Advances in Enzyme Research (AER) is pleased to

bring you multiple new topical collections on enzyme

sciences. AER, a broad-based journal, was founded on

tenets to publish the most exciting researches with en-

zyme science advances and to encourage research, lead-

ership and application of enzymology in disease and pro-

vide a rapid turn-around time possible for reviewing and

publishing and to disseminate the articles freely for re-

search, teaching and reference purposes. As new Scien-

tific Research Open Access model, AER publishes on-

line peer-reviewed articles covering a wide range of the

advancement of science and technology in academic dis-

ciplines. The behaviors of these enzymes as biological

chemical in health and in disease, during and after medi-

cal and/or surgical interventions make AER journal a

center of academic discipline in science. Enzymes are

“biological catalysts” produced or derived from living

organism. When an enzyme is formed, it is made by

stringing together hundreds of amino acids in a very spe-

cific and unique order of chains and folds into a unique

shape that allows the enzyme to carry out specific chem-

ical reactions. An enzyme acts/speeds efficiently as a

catalyst for a specific chemical reaction. The purpose of

an enzyme in a cell is to allow the cell to carry out

chemical reactions. These reactions allow the cell to

build things or take things accordingly as needed. This is

how a cell grows and reproduces. At the most basic level,

a cell is really a little bag full of chemical reactions that

are made possible by enzymes. At any given moment, all

of the work being done inside any cell is being done by

enzymes. If you understand enzymes, then you under-

stand cells. A cell has about 1000 different types of en-

zymes floating around in the cytoplasm at any given time

waiting for the chemical they recognize to float by.

There are hundreds or millions of copies of each differ-

ent type of enzyme, depending on how important a reac-

tion is to a cell and how often the reaction is needed.

These enzymes do everything from breaking glucose

down for energy to building cell walls, constructing new

enzymes and allowing the cell to reproduce. Enzymes do

all of the work inside cells.

A good example is that you may have heard of people

who are lactose intolerant. The problem arises because

the sugar in milk, lactose, does not get broken into its

glucose components [1]. Therefore, it cannot be digested.

As the intestinal cells of individuals who are lactose in-

tolerant do not produce enough lactase, the enzyme

needed to break down lactose. This problem shows how

the lack of just one enzyme in the human body can lead

to significant problems. Sometimes there are medical

solutions to such deficiencies but many enzyme defi-

ciencies are not so easy to manage. A person who is lac-

tose intolerant can swallow a drop of lactase prior to

drinking milk or taking milk products and the problem is

solved.

Further, there are diseases that can cause enzyme defi-

ciency/malabsorption due to a number of gastrointestinal

(GI) conditions such as: in atrophic gastritis, which in-

creases with age, impairs the production of enzymes

needed to break down food and also the production of

intrinsic factor. Malabsorption would also occur with

pancreatic insufficiency [2] and of course any surgery

which removed part of e.g. the stomach [3] or small bo-

wel [4-6] would increase risk. Intestinal conditions such

as inflammatory bowel disease (Crohn’s disease (CD)

and ulcerative colitis (UC) and celiac disease (COD) can

cause significant problems. Long-term use of acid sup-

pressants such as proton pump inhibitors, H2 antagonists

is a potential risk factor, and these are some of the most

widely prescr ibed and used drugs in the eld- erly popula-

tion. Finally, in true pernicious anemia where there is an

autoimmune component, there are three dif- ferent types

of antibodies that could be the cause. Those which bind

to the intrinsic factor-vitamin B12 complex preventing

absorption, antibodies which bind to intrinsic factor itself

may prevent binding with cobalamin, and antibodies to

gastric parietal cells preventing the produc- tion of in-

trinsic factor [7]. This type of enzyme sequen- tial de-

pendence act is essential physiology to understand in

evaluating performance improvement in the treatment of

disease in clinical medicine as well as in surgical practice

as a whole. The biopatholphysiology of enzymes in dif-

A. E. M’Koma / Advances in Enzyme Research 1 (2013) 77-78

ferent disease conditions is the aim and scope of AER

journal. Review processing is performed by the Editorial

Board Members of AER Journal who are estab- lished

professionals in academia. We strongly believe that, re-

moving barriers to research published online will greatly

aid to the progress in AER scientific and techni- cal dis-

ciplines. We hope you will find these new collec- tions

helpful and stimulating, and encourage you to pro- vide

us with your own suggestions of excellent articles for

this and other future collections. Welcome.

REFERENCES

[1] Levitt, M., Wilt, T. and Shaukat, A. (2013) Clinical im-

plications of lactose malabsorption versus lactose intol-

erance. Journal of Clinical Gastroenterology, 47, 471-

480. http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/MCG.0b013e3182889f0f

[2] Talukdar, R. and Reddy, D.N. (2012) Rational use of

pancreatic enzymes in patients with chronic pancreatitis.

Pancreatology, 12, 480-481.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pan.2012.09.003

[3] Eltweri, A.M., Bowrey, D.J., Sutton, C.D., Graham, L.

and Williams, R.N. (2013) An audit to determine if vita-

min B12 supplementation is necessary after sleeve gas-

trectomy. SpringerPlus, 2, 218.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/2193-1801-2-218

[4] Headstrom, P.D., Rulyak, S.J. and Lee, S.D. (2008) Pre-

valence of and risk factors for vitamin B12 deficiency in

patients with Crohn’s disease. Inflammatory Bowel Dis-

eases, 14, 217-223.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ibd.20282

[5] Coull, D.B., Tait, R.C., Anderson, J.H., McKee, R.F. and

Finlay, I.G. (2007) Vitamin B12 deficiency following re-

storative proctocolectomy. Colorectal Disease, 9, 562-

566. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1463-1318.2007.01117.x

[6] Duerksen, D.R., Fallows, G. and Bernstein, C.N. (2006)

Vitamin B12 malabsorption in patients with limited ileal

resection. Nutrition, 22, 1210-1213.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.nut.2006.08.017

[7] Festen, H.P. (1991) Intrinsic factor secretion and cobala-

min absorption. Physiology and pathophysiology in the

gastrointestinal tract. Scandinavian Journal of Gastroen-

terology, 188, 1-7.

http://dx.doi.org/10.3109/00365529109111222