Question

Enzyme reduces its potential utility in the treatment of metabolic diseases.

(a) True

(b) False

This question was posed to me in class test.

Origin of the question is Large Scale Use of Enzyme in portion Large Scale Use of Enzyme in Solution of Enzyme Technology

Answer 1

The correct choice is (a) True

To explain I would say: Enzymes are biocatalyst and hence its should make the most desirable therapeutic agent for the treatment of metabolic diseases. However, a number following factors reduces its potential utility. They are:

• Enzymes are large in size to be distributed within the body cells and hence not successfully applied in human genetic disease treatment. In recent times, number of methods have applied to target the enzymes to overcome this problem.

• Enzymes being antigenic can elicit immune response which may cause severe life threatening allergic reactions. To overcome this problem, enzymes may be disguised as a non-proteinaceous molecule bye covalent modification.

• Enzymes effective lifetime within the circulation may be only a matter of minutes. By disguising using covalent modification, the problem has been overcome a bit. However, these methods often cause increased immunological response and additionally may cause blood clots.

Hence the above statement is true.