Alcohol DehydrogenaseAlcohol Dehydrogenase

Alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) is an enzyme that catalyzes the oxidation of primary and secondary alcohols to their corresponding aldehydes and ketones through a mechanism that involves the removal of hydrogen.

PDB ID 1htb

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1htb, resolution 2.40Å ()
Ligands: , , ,
Gene: HUMAN BETA3 CDNA (Homo sapiens)
Activity: Alcohol dehydrogenase, with EC number 1.1.1.1
Resources: FirstGlance, OCA, PDBsum, RCSB
Coordinates: save as pdb, mmCIF, xml


In the oxidation mechanism, ADH is momentarily associated with nicontinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+), which functions as a cosubstrate. The mechanism of the reaction is below:

CH3CH2OH + NAD+ → CH3COH (acetaldehyde) + NADH + H+ (Note: The reaction is actually reversible although the arrow does not show it) (citation needed) The alcohol dehydrogenase reaction is a bisubstrate reaction, where ADH catalyzed the transfer of a hydride ion from ethanol to NAD+. In metabolic reactions within the human liver, glyceraldehyde is reduced to glycerol through a mechanism in which NADH is reduced to NAD+, and this whole process is catalyzed by alcohol dehydrogenase.


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