Catalytic Multiplicity of 15-Lipoxygenase-1 Orthologs (ALOX15) of Different Species

Abstract

Lipoxygenases (LOX) form a family of lipid peroxidizing enzymes, which have been implicated in a number of physiological processes and in the pathogenesis of inflammatory, hyperproliferative and neurodegenerative diseases. They occur in bacteria and eucarya and the human genome involves six functional LOX genes, which encode for six different LOX isoforms. One of these isoforms is ALOX15, which has first been described in rabbits in 1974 as an enzyme capable of oxidizing membrane phospholipids during the maturational breakdown of mitochondria in immature red blood cells. During the following decades ALOX15 orthologs have extensively been characterized and their biological functions have been studied in a number of cellular in vitro systems as well as in various whole animal disease models. This review is aimed at summarizing the current knowledge on the protein-chemical, molecular biological and enzymatic properties of ALOX15 orthologs of various mammalian species (rabbit, pig, human, nonhuman primates, mouse, rat). Because of space limitations the biological roles of ALOX15 orthologs have not been addressed since this topic has extensively been covered in a previous review (Kuhn et al., Biochim Biophys Acta 1851:308-330, 2015.