Phylogeny and Evolution of Human Cathepsins
Veronika Stoka1, Vito Turk2
1veronika.stoka@ijs.si , J. Stefan Institute; 2Vito.Turk@ijs.si, J. Stefan Institute
Cathepsins are proteolytic enzymes of lysosomal origin. According their catalytic mechanism they can be classified as cysteine, serine or aspartic proteases. Here we show that these enzymes evolved from at least three different evolutionary origins, each of which has produced a group of peptidases with distinctive properties.