Frontiers in Bioscience-Landmark (FBL) is published by IMR Press from Volume 26 Issue 5 (2021). Previous articles were published by another publisher on a subscription basis, and they are hosted by IMR Press on imrpress.com as a courtesy and upon agreement with Frontiers in Bioscience.
CYP51 (sterol 14-demethylase P450) is a family of P450 species having the same function in distinct kingdoms, which makes CYP51 a unique and important enzyme family for the discussion of evolution and diversification of P450. Although CYP51 was named to the P450 originally discovered in yeast and fungi, today, we know that members of CYP51 family exist ubiquitously in animals, plants, fishes, lower eukaryotes such as slime mold, and a part of bacteria. In this review, I describe following subjects: 1) CYP51 as a model family for understanding of diversification of P450, 2) the structure and function relationships of CYP51s.