In enzymology, an uridine nucleosidase is an enzyme

Enzyme

Enzymes are proteins that catalyze chemical reactions. In enzymatic reactions, the molecules at the beginning of the process, called substrates, are converted into different molecules, called products. Almost all chemical reactions in a biological cell need enzymes in order to occur at rates...

 that catalyzes

Catalysis

Catalysis is the change in rate of a chemical reaction due to the participation of a substance called a catalyst. Unlike other reagents that participate in the chemical reaction, a catalyst is not consumed by the reaction itself. A catalyst may participate in multiple chemical transformations....

 the chemical reaction

Chemical reaction

A chemical reaction is a process that leads to the transformation of one set of chemical substances to another. Chemical reactions can be either spontaneous, requiring no input of energy, or non-spontaneous, typically following the input of some type of energy, such as heat, light or electricity...

uridine + H₂O D-ribose + uracil

Thus, the two substrates

Substrate (biochemistry)

In biochemistry, a substrate is a molecule upon which an enzyme acts. Enzymes catalyze chemical reactions involving the substrate. In the case of a single substrate, the substrate binds with the enzyme active site, and an enzyme-substrate complex is formed. The substrate is transformed into one or...

 of this enzyme are uridine

Uridine

Uridine is a molecule that is formed when uracil is attached to a ribose ring via a β-N1-glycosidic bond.If uracil is attached to a deoxyribose ring, it is known as a deoxyuridine....

 and H₂O

Water

Water is a chemical substance with the chemical formula H2O. A water molecule contains one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms connected by covalent bonds. Water is a liquid at ambient conditions, but it often co-exists on Earth with its solid state, ice, and gaseous state . Water also exists in a...

, whereas its two products

Product (chemistry)

Product are formed during chemical reactions as reagents are consumed. Products have lower energy than the reagents and are produced during the reaction according to the second law of thermodynamics. The released energy comes from changes in chemical bonds between atoms in reagent molecules and...

 are D-ribose and uracil

Uracil

Uracil is one of the four nucleobases in the nucleic acid of RNA that are represented by the letters A, G, C and U. The others are adenine, cytosine, and guanine. In RNA, uracil binds to adenine via two hydrogen bonds. In DNA, the uracil nucleobase is replaced by thymine.Uracil is a common and...

.

This enzyme belongs to the family of hydrolase

Hydrolase

In biochemistry, a hydrolase is an enzyme that catalyzes the hydrolysis of a chemical bond. For example, an enzyme that catalyzed the following reaction is a hydrolase:-Nomenclature:...

s, specifically those glycosylases that hydrolyse N-glycosyl compounds. The systematic name of this enzyme class is uridine ribohydrolase. This enzyme is also called uridine hydrolase. This enzyme participates in pyrimidine metabolism

Pyrimidine metabolism

Pyrimidine biosynthesis occurs both in the body and through organic synthesis.-De novo biosynthesis of pyrimidine :Unlike purines, pyrimidines are assembled before being attached to 5-phosphoribosyl-1-pyrophosphate ....

.

Structural studies

As of late 2007, 23 structures

Tertiary structure

In biochemistry and molecular biology, the tertiary structure of a protein or any other macromolecule is its three-dimensional structure, as defined by the atomic coordinates.-Relationship to primary structure:...

 have been solved for this class of enzymes, with PDB

Protein Data Bank

The Protein Data Bank is a repository for the 3-D structural data of large biological molecules, such as proteins and nucleic acids....

accession codes , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , and .