Reductases

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Enzymes that catalyze the reduction of substrates, facilitating the addition of electrons or hydrogen to chemical compounds
2. Biological catalysts that play a crucial role in metabolic pathways by converting oxidized substances into their reduced forms
3. Proteins that facilitate redox reactions by transferring electrons and contributing to cellular processes such as energy production and biosynthesis

Etymology: "Reductases" is simply the plural of "reductase," and the stem is "reduct(ion)" plus the suffix "-ase." The suffix "-ase" is the standard chemical marker for enzymes, and it was attached to the noun "reduction," which in chemistry refers to the gain of electrons or hydrogen by a substance, the opposite of oxidation. Together the two parts describe an enzyme that carries out this reduction. The pattern is a modern coinage rather than an ancient one. Chemists and biochemists built enzyme names this way as the field developed, so the word follows the same logic as names such as "lipase" or "protease," each named for the reaction its enzyme performs. Because the suffix does the naming work, a reader can usually guess what a reductase does from its name alone.