Benzoylformate decarboxylase

The enzyme benzoylformate decarboxylase (EC 4.1.1.7) catalyzes the following chemical reaction:

benzoylformate + H⁺ ${\displaystyle \rightleftharpoons }$ benzaldehyde + CO₂

benzoylformate decarboxylase
Benzoylformate decarboxlyase tetramer, Pseudomonas putida
Identifiers
EC no.	4.1.1.7
CAS no.	9025-00-7
Databases
IntEnz	IntEnz view
BRENDA	BRENDA entry
ExPASy	NiceZyme view
KEGG	KEGG entry
MetaCyc	metabolic pathway
PRIAM	profile
PDB structures	RCSB PDB PDBe PDBsum
Gene Ontology	AmiGO / QuickGO
Search PMC articles PubMed articles NCBI proteins

Hence, this enzyme has one substrate, benzoylformate, and two products, benzaldehyde and CO₂.

This enzyme belongs to the family of lyases, specifically the carboxy-lyases, which cleave carbon-carbon bonds. The systematic name of this enzyme class is benzoylformate carboxy-lyase (benzaldehyde-forming). Other names in common use include phenylglyoxylate decarboxylase, and benzoylformate carboxy-lyase. This enzyme participates in benzoate degradation via hydroxylation and toluene and xylene degradation. It employs one cofactor, thiamin diphosphate.

Structural studies

As of late 2007, 8 structures have been solved for this class of enzymes, with PDB accession codes 1BFD, 1MCZ, 1PI3, 1PO7, 1Q6Z, 1YNO, 2FN3, and 2FWN.