Ornthine Decarboxylase Dimer

Description

Ornthine decarboxylase (ODC) is an enzyme that removes the carboxyl group from ornthine, this enzyme is important because it catalyses the first step in making polyamines which is important in cell growth and differentiation. ODC is found in Trypanosoma.Brucei which is a plasmodium that causes African sleeping sickness. DFMO is a drug that can treat this disease and it does this by acting as a suicide inhibitor that binds irreversibly to the enzyme active site which completely inactivates this enzyme, this prevents T.Bruei from proliferating and growing. ODC is a homo dimeric and the figure above only shows half of the dimer. See the whole dimer here https://skfb.ly/6B6wy.