What is "zymogen"

Zymogen \Zym"o*gen\, n. [Zyme + -gen.] (Physiol. Chem.) A mother substance, or antecedent, of an enzyme or chemical ferment; -- applied to such substances as, not being themselves actual ferments, may by internal changes give rise to a ferment.

The pancreas contains but little ready-made ferment, though there is present in it a body, zymogen, which gives birth to the ferment.
--Foster.

n. (context biochemistry English) A proenzyme, or enzyme precursor, which requires a biochemical change (i.e. hydrolysis) to become an active form of the enzyme.

n. any of a group of compounds that are inactive precursors of enzymes and require some change (such as the hydrolysis of a fragment that masks an active enzyme) to become active [syn: proenzyme]

A zymogen , also called a proenzyme , is an inactive precursor of an enzyme. A zymogen requires a biochemical change (such as a hydrolysis reaction revealing the active site, or changing the configuration to reveal the active site) for it to become an active enzyme. The biochemical change usually occurs in Golgi bodies, where a specific part of the precursor enzyme is cleaved in order to activate it. The inactivating piece which is cleaved off can be a peptide unit, or can be independently folding domains comprising more than 100 residues. Although they limit the enzyme's ability, these n-terminal extensions of the enzyme or a “prosegment” often aid in the stabilizing and folding of the enzyme they inhibit.

The pancreas secretes zymogens partly to prevent the enzymes from digesting proteins in the cells in which they are synthesised. Enzymes like pepsin are created in the form of pepsinogen, an inactive zymogen. Pepsinogen is activated when chief cells release it into the gastric acid, whose hydrochloric acid partially activates it. Another partially activated pepsinogen completes the activation by removing the peptide, turning the pepsinogen into pepsin. Accidental activation of zymogens can happen when the secretion duct in the pancreas is blocked by a gallstone resulting in acute pancreatitis.

Fungi also secrete digestive enzymes into the environment as zymogens. The external environment has a different pH than inside the fungal cell and this changes the zymogen's structure into an active enzyme.

Another way that enzymes can exist in inactive forms and later be converted to active forms is by activating only when a cofactor, called a coenzyme, is bound. In this system, the inactive form (the apoenzyme) becomes the active form (the holoenzyme) when the coenzyme binds.