Cytosolic and membrane-bound forms of glutathione S-transferase are encoded by two distinct supergene families. These enzymes are involved in cellular defense against toxic, carcinogenic, and pharmacologically active electrophilic compounds. At present, eight distinct classes of the soluble cytoplasmic mammalian glutathione S-transferases have been identified: alpha, kappa, mu, omega, pi, sigma, theta and zeta. This gene encodes a glutathione S-transferase belonging to the alpha class genes that are located in a cluster mapped to chromosome 6. Genes of the alpha class are highly related and encode enzymes with glutathione peroxidase activity. However, during evolution, this alpha class gene diverged accumulating mutations in the active site that resulted in differences in substrate specificity and catalytic activity. The enzyme encoded by this gene catalyzes the double bond isomerization of precursors for progesterone and testosterone during the biosynthesis of steroid hormones. An additional transcript variant has been identified, but its full length sequence has not been determined.[7]
^"Human PubMed Reference:". National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine.
^"Mouse PubMed Reference:". National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine.
^Suzuki T, Johnston PN, Board PG (Mar 1994). "Structure and organization of the human alpha class glutathione S-transferase genes and related pseudogenes". Genomics. 18 (3): 680–6. doi:10.1016/S0888-7543(05)80373-8. PMID8307579.
Tetlow N, Coggan M, Casarotto MG, Board PG (2005). "Functional polymorphism of human glutathione transferase A3: effects on xenobiotic metabolism and steroid biosynthesis". Pharmacogenetics. 14 (10): 657–63. doi:10.1097/00008571-200410000-00003. PMID15454730.
Gu Y, Guo J, Pal A, et al. (2005). "Crystal structure of human glutathione S-transferase A3-3 and mechanistic implications for its high steroid isomerase activity". Biochemistry. 43 (50): 15673–9. doi:10.1021/bi048757g. PMID15595823.
Suzuki T, Delgado-Escueta AV, Alonso ME, et al. (2006). "Mutation analyses of genes on 6p12-p11 in patients with juvenile myoclonic epilepsy". Neurosci. Lett. 405 (1–2): 126–31. doi:10.1016/j.neulet.2006.06.038. PMID16876319. S2CID20526126.
