BRENDA Enzyme Database

Overview

BRENDA (BRaunschweig ENzyme DAtabase) is the world's most comprehensive enzyme information system, containing 80,000+ enzyme entries covering all classified enzymes (EC numbers). It holds 7M+ experimentally measured kinetic parameters (Km, Vmax, kcat, Ki, inhibition constants), substrate specificity data, cofactor requirements, tissue expression, and organism-specific enzyme variants from 200,000+ literature references. Programmatic access is via a SOAP-based web service (Python zeep library) with free academic registration.

When to Use

• Retrieving kinetic parameters (Km, kcat, Vmax, Ki) for a specific enzyme and substrate combination
• Comparing kinetic parameters across organisms or mutant variants for an enzyme
• Finding natural substrates, inhibitors, and cofactors for an EC number
• Building kinetic models for metabolic simulations requiring Michaelis-Menten parameters
• Identifying enzyme-specific structural data (recommended pH, temperature optima)
• Cross-referencing EC numbers with UniProt accessions and organism taxonomy
• For metabolic network simulation use cobrapy-metabolic-modeling; for metabolite structures use hmdb-database

Prerequisites