Enzyme therapy: a forerunner in catalyzing a healthy society?

ABSTRACT

Introduction

The use of enzymes in various industries has been prevalent for centuries. However, their potency as therapeutics remained latent until the late 1950 s, when scientists finally realized the gold mine they were sitting on. Enzyme therapy has seen rapid development over the past few decades and has been widely used for the therapy of myriad diseases, including lysosomal storage disorders, cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, irritable bowel syndrome, exocrine pancreatic insufficiency, and hyperuricemia. Enzymes are also used for wound healing, the treatment of microbial infections, and gene therapy.

Areas covered

This is a comprehensive review of the therapeutic use of enzymes that can act as a guidepost for researchers and academicians and presents a general overview of the developments in enzyme therapy over the years, along with updates on recent advancements in enzyme therapy research.

Expert opinion

Although enzyme therapy is immensely beneficial and induces little auxiliary damage, it has several drawbacks, ranging from high cost, low stability, low production, and hyperimmune responses to the failure to cure a variety of the problems associated with a disease. Further fine-tuning and additional clinical efficacy studies are required to establish enzyme therapy as a forerunner to catalyzing a healthy society.

KEYWORDS:

• Enzyme therapy
• lysosomal storage disorders
• cancer
• Alzheimer’s disease
• irritable bowel syndrome
• exocrine pancreatic insufficiency
• gene therapy

Article highlights

• Enzyme therapy is used mainly for treatment of genetic disorders as Lysosomal disorders characterized by deficiency or dysfunction of glycolipid metabolism enzymes.

• The use of enzymes for therapy is highly disease specific and varies with each and every diseased condition especially while considering enzyme replacement therapy.

• Use of enzymes for therapy can be extended beyond use in only genetic disorders. It is now being used for cancer therapy, wound healing, microbial infections, pancreatic insufficiency therapy, and gene editing-based therapies.

• Development of therapeutic enzymes for many genetic diseases are under clinical trials or have been approved.

• Therapeutic enzyme administration helps in efficient but temporary remediation of these diseases

• Enzyme replacement therapy allows for a significant reduction in the manifestations of the disease but does not constitute a curative treatment and requires lifetime administration in addition to not being effective in neurological forms.

This box summarizes key points contained in the article.

Declaration of interest

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or any of the materials that have been elucidated in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

Reviewer disclosures

Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial relationships or otherwise to disclose.

Additional information

Funding

This paper was not funded.