The Comprehensive Enzyme Information System
What BRENDA is, and who curates it.
BRENDA is the most comprehensive information repository on enzymes and enzyme ligand data. The BRENDA enzyme information system has developed into an elaborate system of enzyme and enzyme-ligand information obtained from different sources, combined with flexible query systems and evaluation tools. BRENDA has been developed and is maintained by the Institute of Biochemistry and Bioinformatics at the Technical University of Braunschweig, Germany. Data on enzyme function are extracted manually from primary literature, and are complemented by text and data mining, data integration, and prediction algorithms.
The curation process has been designed to ensure a maximum of quality, depth and coverage of the contents of this unique database. Formal and consistency checks are done by an elaborate computational pipeline. All enzymes in BRENDA are classified according to the biochemical reaction catalyzed, and are assigned to the corresponding Enzyme Commission (EC) numbers. Reaction kinetics are described in detail. BRENDA’s intuitive user interface support a wide range of queries such as fast full text search, advanced complex queries or searching via sequence or substructure. Browsing the contents is facilitated by a Taxonomic Tree, an Enzyme class, a Genome or an Ontology explorer.
Structure
Three domains of data.
The data sources of BRENDA comprise three main domains: Text mining data, manual annotation and external databases and ontologies.

Organization of BRENDA® contents. Tap to enlarge.
The supplementary sources FRENDA (enzyme name & organism), AMENDA (enzyme name & organism & occurence), DRENDA (disease-related enzyme data) and KENDA (kinetic data) complement the BRENDA core by text mining data.
The manually annotated core is based on IUBMB enzyme classes and literature from PubMed. Additionally, the BRENDA tissue ontology (BTO) is linked to the manual annotation.
Cross references to several external databases like UniProt, PDB, MetaCyc, ChEBI, KEGG, EMBL, and the Taxonomy Browser of NCBI further expand BRENDA.
Key features
What is in the database.
>3M
Data points in the manually derived core
>77,000
Enzymes annotated
>150,000
Publications annotated from
>30,000
Organisms with molecular data
8,149
EC numbers, January 2021
Word Maps for enzymes generated from PubMed abstracts highlight application and scientific relevance of enzymes. The EnzymeDetector genome annotation tool and the reaction database BKM-react including reactions from BRENDA, KEGG and MetaCyc.
BRENDA is the most comprehensive information repository on enzymes with 8,149 EC numbers (January 2021). Thereof 7,787 EC numbers are considered active while others are preliminary or retired and just kept for documentary purpose.
Benefits
What a licence gives you.
Cross-referenced databasesRecent applications
Find below a selection of recent articles reporting about BRENDA applications.
New release
What each release changed.
Price request BRENDA
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Publications
The BRENDA papers.
Schomburg I., Chang A., Placzek S., Söhngen C., Rother M., Lang M., Munaretto C., Ulas S., Stelzer M., Grote A. Scheer M., Schomburg D.
BRENDA in 2013: integrated reactions, kinetic data, enzyme function data, improved disease classification: new options and contents in BRENDA.
Nucleic Acids Res. 41:764-772 · 2013
Schomburg, I., Hofmann, O., Baensch, C., Chang, A., Schomburg, D.
Enzyme data and metabolic information: BRENDA, a resource for research in biology, biochemistry, and medicine.
Gene Funct. Dis. 3-4:109-18 · 2000
License the enzyme data, locally or online.
BRENDA installs on your own Linux or Windows system, or runs online. Tell us which you need and whether the licence is academic or commercial.
Curated at the TU Braunschweig · >3 million data points · academic and commercial licences

