Abstract—Pirin is a highly conserved protein found in various organisms from bacteria to human. Although structurally it belongs to the widespread cupin family, we have limited knowledge of its function and mechanism. Recent research identified that Pirin can catalyze quercetin through quercetin 2,3-dioxygenase reaction and act as transcriptional co-regulator. To further investigate these functions, the relationship between Pirin and cancer development has been studied, identifying Pirin as a potential therapeutic target of cancer, particularly in melanomas, cervical cancer and squamous cell lung carcinomas. This review presents accumulating discovery in Pirin’s function and discusses possible direction for further studies.

Index Terms—Applied computing, life and medical sciences, systems biology.

Yifei Wang is with University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Cite: Yifei Wang, "Pirin, a Multifunction Protein with Quercetinase Activity and Involvement in Transcription Regulation," International Journal of Bioscience, Biochemistry and Bioinformatics, vol. 12, no. 4, pp. 85-92, 2022.

Copyright © 2022 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (CC BY 4.0).