Α-L-fucosidase


The enzyme α-L-fucosidase catalyzes the following chemical reaction: an α-L-fucoside + H2O L-fucose + an alcohol
This enzyme belongs to the family of hydrolases, specifically those glycosidases that hydrolyse O- and S-glycosyl compounds. The systematic name of this enzyme class is α-L-fucoside fucohydrolase. This enzyme is also called α-fucosidase. It participates in N-glycan degradation and glycan structure degradation.
Deficiency of this enzyme is called fucosidosis.
In CAZy, α-L-fucosidases are found in glycoside hydrolase family 29 and glycoside hydrolase family 95.

Structural studies

As of late 2007, 3 structures have been solved for this class of enzymes, with PDB accession codes,, and.

Human medical studies

It was in a recent study by Endreffy, Bjørklund and collaborators found an association between the activity of α-L-fucosidase-1 and chronic autoimmune disorders in children. This should encourage further research on FUCA-1 as a marker of chronic inflammation and autoimmunity. Recently, there have been focus on various engineering strategies to make fucosynthase to fucosidase.