Species Human Entrez 3176 | Human Mouse Ensembl ENSG00000150540 | |
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Aliases HNMT, HMT, HNMT-S1, HNMT-S2, MRT51, histamine N-methyltransferase, Histamine N-methyltransferase External IDs MGI: 2153181 HomoloGene: 5032 GeneCards: HNMT | ||
Medical vocabulary what does histamine n methyltransferase mean
Histamine N-methyltransferase (HMT, HNMT) is an enzyme that in humans is encoded by the HNMT gene.
Contents
Histamine N-methyltransferase is one of two enzymes involved in the metabolism of histamine, the other being diamine oxidase. Histamine N-methyltransferase catalyzes the methylation of histamine in the presence of S-adenosylmethionine (SAM) forming N-methylhistamine. HMT is present in most body tissues but is not present in serum. Histamine N-methyltransferase is encoded by a single gene which has been mapped to chromosome 2.
Function
In mammals, histamine is metabolized by two major pathways: N(tau)-methylation via histamine N-methyltransferase and oxidative deamination via diamine oxidase. This gene encodes the first enzyme which is found in the cytosol and uses S-adenosyl-L-methionine as the methyl donor. In the mammalian brain, the neurotransmitter activity of histamine is controlled by N(tau)-methylation as diamine oxidase is not found in the central nervous system. A common genetic polymorphism affects the activity levels of this gene product in red blood cells.