A close family resemblance: The importance of structure in understanding cytochromes P450

Abstract

Cytochromes P450 comprise a very large superfamily of hemeproteins which generally monooxygenate hydrophobic compounds. P450s appear to have a common conserved structural core, yet are variable in regions involved in substrate recognition and binding, and in redox-partner binding. These differences can be identified by an analysis in which structural alignments and homology models are used to compare the various classes and families of P450s.