Book Description

Enzymatic Basis of Detoxication, Volume I focuses on the catalytic mechanisms and physiological expression of the enzymes that are involved in the detoxication of foreign compounds. The book explores foreign compound metabolism at the level of what specific enzymes can do. This book is organized into three sections and comprised of 17 chapters. The discussion begins with an overview of detoxication and covers both catalytic and non-catalytic removal of foreign substances, along with the general properties of the enzymes that are active in detoxication. The reader is then introduced to the physiological aspects of detoxication, paying particular attention to the kinetic aspects of metabolism and elimination of foreign compounds in animals, human genetic variation in detoxication enzymes, and how such enzymes are induced. The next section focuses on mixed function oxygenase systems and includes chapters on cytochrome P-450 and the detoxication reactions it catalyzes. The book also considers other oxidation-reduction systems, with reference to alcohol dehydrogenase, aldehyde reductase, aldehyde oxidizing enzymes, ketone reductases, xanthine oxidase and aldehyde oxidase, glutathione peroxidase, and superoxide dismutases. The final chapter is devoted to monoamine oxidase, its properties, substrate specificity, inhibitors, kinetics and mechanism, and multiple forms. Pharmacologists, toxicologists, and biochemists will find this book extremely helpful.