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We have many unassigned pages in need of Authors and Responsible Curators. See a page that's out-of-date and just needs a touch-up? - You are also welcome to become a CAZypedian. Here's how.
Scientists at all career stages, including students, are welcome to contribute.
Learn more about CAZypedia's misson here and in this article.
Totally new to the CAZy classification? Read this first.
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25 November 2021 CRO about it!: In our latest Curator Approved page in a while, Maria Cleveland has written an extensive history of the Copper Radical Oxidases (CROs) that constitute Auxiliary Activity Family 5. The archetypal AA5 CRO is the Fusarium graminearum galactose oxidase, which was first isolated in the 1950s, provided the first 3-D structure in the 1990s, and has been the subject of numerous mechanistic studies up through the new millennium. AA5 also contains the glyoxal oxidases, which were discovered in Wisconsin in the late 1980s and form their own subfamily. More recent work by Maria Cleveland, Yann Mathieu, and others has shown that a wider range of substrate specificities exists in this family than previously anticipated, while the catalytic flexibility of wild-type and mutant enzymes has spurred numerous biotech applications. Slide on over to the AA5 page, which includes a deep reference list, to learn more about these interesting enzymes!
23 June 2021 A free CAZypedia webinar: Check out the presentation on CAZypedia by Senior Curator Elizabeth Ficko-Blean, which was part of a webinar on Recent Advances in Carbohydrate-Active Enzymes organized by Stefan Janecek. Stefan also gave a talk on alpha-amylase bioinformatics, and Nicolas Terrapon gave an overview of the CAZy database in a presentation entitled "Carbohydrate-Active EnZymes Annotation in the High-Throughput Era". More information on the webinar can be found here, and you can watch all three lectures for free on YouTube.
31 May 2021 Celebrating CAZy: The B.A. Stone Award for Excellence in Plant Polysaccharide Biochemistry was awarded to CAZy founder Bernard Henrissat today. CAZy, CAZypedia, and Prof. Bruce Stone have a long, intertwined history, and today we celebrate Bernie's insight to create a sequence-based classification of the Carbohydrate-Active EnZymes, starting with the cellulases.
30 March 2021 Presenting the gagalicious CBM87 family: CBM87 members are found appended to fungal galactosaminogalactan deacetylases that are involved in biofilm formation. The CBM87s have the unusual - but not unheard of - property of extending the enzyme's catalytic site. The GAG-binding CBM87 CAZypedia page has been authored by Natalie Bamford with Lynne Howell acting as responsible curator. Go gaga for the GAG-binding CBM87 family here.
2 December 2020: It's a bird, it's a plane, it's CBM14! From start to finish in superhero time, the lectin-containing, chitin-binding CBM14 page is up and running. This is thanks to the heroic efforts of author Eva Madland with Elizabeth Ficko-Blean acting as responsible curator for the CBM14 page. This CBM family continues to blur the lines betweeen CBMs and lectins and even type A , B and C CBMs. Find out more on these interesting chitin-binding multi-characteristic CBMs here.
1 December 2020: YANCEFP! (Yet Another New Carbohydrate Esterase Family Page, from our friends at WLU!) Following on a string of CE pages completed by students at Wilfred Laurier University (see CE3, CE4, CE7 and CE9), today Bobby Lamont finalized the Carbohydrate Esterase Family 2 under the guidance of Prof. Joel Weadge and Prof. Anthony Clarke. CE2 contains carbohydrate de-O-acetylases with diverse regiospecifcity, which use a catalytic dyad to perform hydrolysis. This family has a long and rich history of mechanistic and structural study, dating back to the last millennium, which you can learn much more about on Bobby's detailed page.
29 September 2020: Back to the future with beta-1,3-glucanases: The Glycoside Hydrolase Family 128 page was promoted to Curator Approved status by Mario Murakami today. GH128 was originally created following the discovery of this family by Yuichi Sakamoto and colleagues, who characterized the archetypal beta-1,3-glucanase from the shiitake mushroom. This year, a team led by Mario Murakami, including first-author Camila Santos, presented a sweeping first mechanistic and structural study of GH128. We're grateful to Camila and Mario for elaborating upon Yuichi's original CAZypedia page, which you can read here. You can also compare GH128 with other distinct beta-1,3-glucanase families covered in CAZypedia, e.g. GH17, GH81, GH148, and GH158.