P00439

The PAH gene encodes the enzyme phenylalanine hydroxylase (PAH), which converts phenylalanine to tyrosine and is the rate-limiting enzyme in phenylalanine catabolism. Mammalian PAH is a soluble, homotetrameric protein which is abundantly expressed in human liver. Deficiency of PAH activity results in the autosomal recessive disorder phenylketonuria (PKU), which is characterized by mental retardation unless a low phenylalanine diet is introduced early in life. The PAH gene, which maps to human chromosome 12q23.2, contains all the genetic information necessary to code for functional PAH, demonstrating that a single gene is involved in the classic disease phenotype. Numerous mutations can impair the PAH gene, which result in decreased enzyme activity and give rise to varying degrees of PKU. Multiple isozymes of PAH have been reported to exist, but these are most likely allelic variants of PAH that produce protein subunits with slightly different charge and electrophoretic migration.